The threat (illustrated)

(Cartoon by Herb Block, from The Washington Post, June 17, 1949.)

Horace sense, revisited

"...The right to own and bear arms is a natural right of man, guaranteed by our Bill of Rights, but superior to all laws and constitutions. It is our only defence against tyranny, and, as such, will never be relinquished by Americans who respect their birthright."

(Horace Kephart, from "The Gun: A Fool I' the Forest," published in the February 1901 issue of Outing magazine)

'From my cold dead hands!'

It looks like I'm back for one more encore. I've been asked to serve a third term as your president.

I don't think anyone's done that before. But George Washington hung around until the Revolutionary War was won. Roosevelt hung around until World War II was won. Reagan hung around until the Cold War was won. If you want, I'll hang around until we win this one, too.

Do you feel that incredible energy in the air here today? I'll tell you what it is. It's the feeling you get when you're making a difference in the future of your country.

That was my goal -- to make a difference -- when I became your president two years ago. So I set some lofty goals. I said I'd do my part if you'd do yours. Now, just two years later, we've accomplished them all.

All except one.

First, I asked you to rebuild our NRA membership, and you have. Not by just a few thousand members, but by one million members.

Second, I asked you to rebuild our NRA war chest, and you have. I don't mean just in dollars, but in sense. The good sense of the NRA leadership you see here today. Your leaders are qualified, competent, unified, and believe me, fearless.

Third, I wanted to bring the NRA back to the table of mainstream political debate, and we have. You saw Wayne on that tape. I'd say we're not just at the table.

We're eating their lunch.

But more than anything else, I asked you to believe in each other again. To believe that gun ownership is as wholesome as it is constitutional. To believe that an NRA sticker on your windshield is a sign of pride. To believe that a kid who wants to plink at tin cans is not a kid gone wrong. To believe that the great flame of freedom our founding fathers ignited has not grown cold.

I declare that mission accomplished! I look around this great hall and I see the fire is in your eyes, the pride is in your hearts, and the commitment is here in your presence today. The NRA is baaaaaack...

All of which spells very serious trouble for a man named Gore.

Didja see that Gore rally in D.C. last weekend? One of the marchers said, "The hands that rock the cradle rule this nation." And I thought, No madam, the hands that rock the cradle rule our families and governments and corporations. The hands that wrote the Constitution rule this nation.

All the anti-gun celebs came out to march. Tipper Gore was there, Rosie O'Donnell was there (I like to call her Tokyo Rosie). A fine actress, Susan Sarandon, was there and shouted with great diplomacy and stateswomanship, "We Moms are really pissed off!"

I must ask, pissed off about what? If it's crime, why aren't you pissed off at the failure of this Administration to prosecute gun-toting criminals?

If it's accidents, why aren't you pissed off at swimming pool owners, or stairway owners, or pickup owners?

Why aren't you pissed off that gun accident prevention programs aren't in every elementary classroom in America?

As a matter of fact, why aren't you pissed off at parents who're oblivious that their kids are building bombs in their bedrooms?

Why aren't you pissed off that Mr. Gore wants registration and licensing instead of parenting and prosecution?

Which leads me to that one mission left undone: Winning in November. That's why I'm staying on for a third tour of duty.

Today I challenge you to find your third term, and serve it. Find your extra mile, and walk it.

Only you know what you can do between now and that decisive November day to turn the tide of these elections in favor of freedom. I ask you to find it and fulfill it.

Go the extra distance, find that extra member, write the extra check, knock on one more door, work one more hour, make one more call, convince one more friend, turn the other cheek if you must, but find your third term and serve it.

That's your part to play. What more important role can there be...than to bequeath our freedom to the next generation as pure and intact as it was given to us. As Mr. Lincoln commanded: "With firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in...and then we shall save our country."

Each of us in his own way, plus all of us in our collective millions, must give that extra measure that freedom demands of us.

Let me tell you what I mean. Until a few hours ago I was finishing my 80th film in Vancouver, Canada. I was there because I love my craft and I love to feed my family.

So you'll forgive me if I'm a little tired. I flew all night, across a continent and three time zones, to be here with you. I'm here because I love my country and I love this freedom.

But it was just the most recent flight in thousands of flights, the most recent mile on thousands of roads I've travelled in my ten years of active service to this great Association. It's been a helluva ride.

I remember a decade ago at my first annual meeting in St. Louis. After my banquet remarks to a packed house, they presented me with a very special gift. It was a splendid hand-crafted musket.

I admit I was overcome by the power of its simple symbolism. I looked at that musket and I thought of all of the lives given for that freedom. I thought of all of the lives saved with that freedom. It dawned on me that the doorway to all freedoms is framed by muskets.

So I lifted that musket over my head for all to see. And as flashbulbs popped around the room, my heart and a few tears swelled up, and I uttered five unscripted words. When I did, that room exploded in sustained applause and hoots and shouts that seemed to last forever.

In that moment, I bonded with this great Association. And in thousands of moments since, I've been asked to repeat those five words in airports and hotels and rallies and speeches across this land.

In your own way, you have already heard them. That's why you're here.

Every time our country stands in the path of danger, an instinct seems to summon her finest first -- those who truly understand her. When freedom shivers in the cold shadow of true peril, it's always the patriots who first hear the call. When loss of liberty is looming, as it is now, the siren sounds first in the hearts of freedom's vanguard. The smoke in the air of our Concord Bridges and Pearl Harbors is always smelled first by the farmers, who come from their simple homes to find the fire, and fight.

Because they know that sacred stuff resides in that wooden stock and blued steel, something that gives the most common man the most uncommon of freedoms. When ordinary hands can possess such an extraordinary instrument, that symbolizes the full measure of human dignity and liberty.

That's why those five words issue an irresistible call to us all, and we muster.

So as we set out this year to defeat the divisive forces that would take freedom away, I want to say those words again for everyone within the sound of my voice to hear and to heed, and especially for you, Mr. Gore:

From my cold dead hands!

(National Rifle Association President Charlton Heston, in opening remarks delivered at the NRA Annual Meeting on May 20, 2000)

Constitutional illumination (illustrated)

[To my fellow Ohioans committed to protecting their constitutional rights from government abuse: I recommend paying a visit to The 1851 Center for Constitutional Law.]

Constitutional illumination

Rather than burdening readers with a lengthy introduction, I'll get right to the meat of this post. Here's the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

You and I know that those 27 words guarantee an individual right. Some still insist, however, on the primacy of the first clause -- that is, the necessity of "a well regulated militia" to be armed somehow trumps "the right of the people."

So here we are, 223 years after the Bill of Rights was introduced, applying today's language, culture and politics to our understanding of the Framers' intent. Wouldn't it be helpful to have something resembling a contemporaneous take on this fundamental right?

To that end I present Article VIII, Section 20 of the first constitution of the newly admitted State of Ohio:

"That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the State; and as standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they shall not be kept up: and that the military shall be kept under strict subordination to the civil power."

Adopted in 1802 -- the year before Ohio achieved statehood and just 11 years after the U.S. Bill of Rights was ratified -- that leaves no doubt about the purpose of granting the People an individual right to bear arms: "for the defense of themselves and the State."

Come-lately critics and anti-gun zealots, please take note: There's no mention of "hunting" or "subsistence" in that section -- that's because they were (and are) irrelevant to the right to keep and bear arms.

The 1851 revision of the Ohio Constitution moved the state's Bill of Rights up from Article VIII to Article I -- talk about primacy -- and the section related to arms underwent a slight change at the same time:

"The people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security; but standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and shall not be kept up; and the military shall be in strict subordination to the civil power."

That language remains in force today, underscoring that every citizen of The Great State of Ohio rightfully may bear arms "for their defense and security." It also reminds us why military forces must be "well regulated" -- because "standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty."

I could leave it there, certainly, but Ohio's constitution has much more light to shine.

Returning to our nation's founding documents, here's the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence:

"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."

The first Constitution of the State of Ohio (1803) incorporated similar principles, addressing "natural, inherent and unalienable rights" in Article VIII, Section 1:

"That all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent and unalienable rights; amongst which are the enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety; and every free republican government, being founded on their sole authority, and organized for the great purpose of protecting their rights and liberties, and securing their independence; to effect these ends, they have at all times a complete power to alter, reform or abolish their government, whenever they may deem it necessary."

In the 1851 revision, which saw Ohio citizens' enumerated rights given proper prominence, the "inalienable rights" passage became more concise. This is Article I, Section 1:

"All men are, by nature, free and independent, and have certain inalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and seeking and obtaining happiness and safety."

Notice that both versions of this section -- the second of which is still in force, by the way, 161 years after its adoption -- codify two fundamental rights before all others: "enjoying and defending life and liberty" and "acquiring, possessing, and protecting property."

Legal scholars continue to argue over whether the Declaration of Independence represents law or merely principle, but the Constitution of the State of Ohio carries the force of law. Fortunately, the early Ohioans who crafted their state's governing document -- during the same formative era in which the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights were written and ratified -- saw fit to incorporate the inalienable human right to defend life, liberty and property.

That's because they understood our nation's founding principles. Their understanding is my understanding -- and a legacy of Liberty.

Couldn't've said it better

"On this morning's edition of Fareed Zakaria GPS, the host reported that the U.S. accounts for 5% of the world's population and 50% of the world's privately owned firearms -- now that makes me proud to be an American. For those who are ashamed of Liberty but don't have the wherewithal to relocate to another country, I offer this graphic. (Instructions included at no extra charge.)" (via Facebook)

Another voice on Aurora

[Massad Ayoob, noted firearms instructor and prolific author, posted this yesterday on his Backwoods Home Magazine blog, "Massad Ayoob on Guns." The hyperlinks are mine.]

And it happens again...

Shortly after the clock ticks into the early morning hours of July 20 during a midnight movie premier at a theater in Aurora, Colorado, a mass murderer opens fire. A dozen or more dead, dozens more wounded, and practically by the time responding officers arrive the anti-gunners are already at their keyboards choreographing their traditional dance in the blood of innocent victims. One, CNN's resident Pommie priss -- who has already long since proven himself totally clueless as to the real-world dynamics of violence -- twitters that guns should be 100,000 times harder to access.

Maybe jobs as public-opinion-forming talking heads should be 100,000 times harder to get, as well. By the way, the "Pommie" reference is nothing against the British in general. The pragmatic Brits I know are aware that they have living countrymen who remember when England begged American gun owners to ship them hunting rifles, shotguns, and handguns for their civilians to use as last ditch weapons against the expected Nazi land invasion. It was the Brits themselves who coined POME (Prisoner Of Mother England) to define their brothers and sisters who evinced the mentality we see in the commentator in question.

Overlooked by most is a point discovered by famed Constitutional lawyer Don Kates: the theater in question forbade firearms inside. They themselves made it impossible for even one good person in the theater to draw a lawfully-carried handgun and put a bullet through the monster's brain, to stop the horror and shortstop the tragedy.

Once again, we see that "gun free zones" are hunting preserves for psychopaths who prey on humans.

[Amen, Mas -- amen.]

On Aurora

[This was posted by a Facebook friend last night. It echoes "Here's your sign," which appeared on KintlaLake Blog almost a year ago.]

I'm sorry to be posting this so soon after the mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado -- please know that my heart goes out to the victims and their loved ones -- but I'm angry.

I'm angry because, according to news reports, the movie theater where 12 people were murdered and another 59 wounded had a "No Guns Allowed" policy. It may well have posted signs like this one.

This sign kills.

Make no mistake -- even if one or more moviegoers had been lawfully carrying firearms in that theater this morning, there's no guarantee that they could've stopped the shooter or reduced the number of casualties. But we do know two things for sure.

First of all, permitting lawful carry just might've given those theater patrons a fighting chance. More important, signs like this -- and the policies they represent -- advertise to the world that the facility on which they're posted is full of unarmed people, potential victims, fish in a barrel.

It makes no sense.

Today's massacre was an act of evil, carried out by a madman. Everyone knows that madmen are shadows and evil is a fact of life, and yet some among us still suggest that we can prevent such violence by restricting or outright banning some or all firearms -- leaving innocents outgunned at best, disarmed at worst.

That's the equivalent of posting this sign on our houses and on our cars, tattooing it on our foreheads. And it makes no sense.

Madmen and criminal predators always -- and I mean always -- will find a way to get 'hold of the tools of their trade, and incidents like the one in Colorado this morning demonstrate that they sure as hell don’t obey laws and policies, much less signs. Disarming law-abiding citizens by statute, then, can have only one result.

Innocent people will die. When will we learn that?

I see signs like this on businesses every day. Uncomfortable as I am to be entering an "unarmed victims zone," sometimes I patronize the establishment anyway, rationalizing my choice in one way or another.

Not any more. It makes no sense.

Cave exploring

The other day I happened upon an essay entitled, "The Gun as a Weapon of Education," written by one Edward Cave and published in a 1918 edition of The Outlook.

The headline was intriguing, certainly, but the subhead hooked me:

"Lessons from the Long Trail that Goes 'Way Around Beyond the Bleak and Barren Mountains of Mere Marksmanship to the Happy Valley of Sportsmanship"

Knowing of the author's connection to Scouting, I scanned the piece for a mention. These lines jumped out at me:

"A couple of years before the Germans turned loose their war, for eight months I disturbed the pious and pacific calm of the National headquarters of the Boy Scouts with the rude idea that Baden-Powell, the British soldier who originated the Boy Scout idea, meant their slogan, 'Be Prepared,' to imply prepared to carry a gun, not a harp."

That, my friends, is absolutely priceless. Cave continued:

"Despite instructions, I drilled my troop of Boy Scouts, and drilled them hard. Since then I have had the satisfaction of vindication on both counts. In addition, I have had the satisfaction of helping a good many thousands of Boy Scouts and plain ordinary boys to learn how to shoot a .22 rifle properly. I joined the National Rifle Association of America and the United States Revolver Association, and recently induced the former to encourage boys to take up target-shooting outdoors with the .22 rifles."

Cave's assertion that he influenced "a good many thousands of Boy Scouts and plain ordinary boys" was no idle boast -- in 1915 he published Boy Scout Marksmanship, a seminal work on the subject and a valuable primer for boys within and beyond the uniformed ranks.

Later in the text, I chuckled at Cave's expressed intent to "square up some old accounts" -- that is, to needle certain types of people that he found particularly annoying. Specifically:

"Folks who are afraid of a gun, but otherwise all right.

"Folks who will not let a big-enough boy have a gun.

"Folks who are fond of roast chicken -- and, if necessary to get it, would chase a pet rooster till red in the face and chop his head off -- yet raise objection to all hunting, and are classified among wild life conservationists as sentimentalists.

"Pacifists -- the worst of the lot."

That passage is another keeper, for sure. Cave closed his engaging essay with this:

"Far away on the horizon you see what at first appears like a fog in some distant valley. It is the smoke pall above some city, and it reminds you, hunter that you are, of the vaporings of the city men you know who can never stand where you do, nor even rise above their droll little chimneys, yet presume to force upon their fellows their narrow conception of a world outlook.

"Poor little wall-warped and roof-stunted boys who were never allowed to have a gun!"

"The Gun as a Weapon of Education" is a fun read -- playful and unapologetic, relevant despite its advanced age. I recommend it.

Nancy fails The Smell Test

"They're going after Eric Holder because he is supporting measures to overturn these voter-suppression initiatives in the states. This is no accident, it is no coincidence. It is a plan on the part of Republicans."

"These very same people who are holding him in contempt are part of a nationwide scheme to suppress the vote. It is connected. It's clear as can be. It's not only to monopolize his time, it's to undermine his name."

"It's really important to note how this is connected with some of their other decisions. It is no accident, it is no coincidence, that the attorney general of the United States is the person responsible for making sure that voter suppression does not happen in our country."

(Rep. Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader, speaking to the media yesterday morning. I know that intellectual honesty and critical thought are endangered, even extinct, but Pelosi's shovelful of unfiltered bullshit is perhaps the most tortured spin I've ever heard.)

Contemptible

This morning Pres. Barack Obama invoked executive privilege, expressing his resolve to withhold documents relating to Operation Fast and Furious from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee -- and thereby from the American People.

The intent of the ATF's gun-running scheme was to manufacture public sentiment in support of unconstitutional gun-grabbing legislation. Once the ploy was discovered and the investigation began, Attorney General Eric Holder and his Department of Justice set about stonewalling and outright lying to the committee -- clearly a cover-up of the operation's built-in corruption.

Today's assertion of executive privilege, which historically has been used to shield the confidentiality of the president himself, changes the game completely. In short, it implies that knowledge of Fast and Furious -- or involvement in the official cover-up -- went well beyond the DOJ, all the way to the White House.

Think about that.

Rep. Darrell Issa, who chairs the House committee, has been relentless in pursuit of the truth about Fast and Furious, and I admire his tenacity. Soon his committee will vote on citing Holder for contempt. There's only one proper outcome of that vote, of course, but the process shouldn't end there.

First, the People need to know what's in the documents now being withheld. More important, every elected official, unelected bureaucrat and political appointee who participated in subverting the Constitution -- and I mean every last one, all the way to the White House -- must be sent packing.

A sign for these times

(Adapted from the now-iconic "Keep Calm and Carry On" propaganda poster, produced during World War II by Great Britain's Ministry of Information. For some entertaining background on the poster, click here and here. To create your own parody, click here.)

Just 'cause it sounds stupid...

If the name "Charles L. Worley" doesn't ring a bell, maybe you've seen his work, a portion of which went viral on YouTube recently. Worley is pastor of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, North Carolina, and on May 13th this is what he preached to his mindless flock:

"I figured a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers. Build a great big large fence -- 50 or 100 mile long -- put all the lesbians in there. Fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals and have that fence electrified so they can't get out. And you know what, in a few years, they'll die out. Do you know why? They can't reproduce!"

To be sure, that kind of garbage spews from Christian pulpits each and every Sunday all across this country. It's not only bigoted and antithetical to Liberty, in Worley's case it's downright idiotic.

"...In a few years, they'll die out. Do you know why? They can't reproduce!"

Think about it. Worley sure didn't.

Problem is, stupid shit often sticks. Worley's hateful words, while they probably won't result in internment camps for gays, have a large and enthusiastic audience. They will have an effect -- count on that.

I mean, why do you think New York City is the way it is?

Now here's another name for you: "John R. Thompson" -- restaurant baron (whites only, please) and leader of a 1920s crusade to ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns.

In 1921, Thompson took out ads in newspapers nationwide -- one of which got the attention of Horace Kephart -- issuing this challenge:

"I will pay $1,000 to anyone who will give one good reason why the revolver manufacturing industry should be allowed to exist in America and enjoy the facilities of the mails."

His rationale?

"The revolver always has been and still is a menace to any community. It merely is a weapon for the thug, the holdup man and the murderer. It is impossible to turn to any useful purpose, as one uses the rifle or shotgun. Where would our holdup man, doing such a thriving business in Chicago today, be, if he could not get hold of a revolver? He couldn't very well go round packing a shotgun or a rifle, and if he carried only a piece of lead pipe or club the victim would at least have a fighting chance."

Obviously -- to me, anyway, and probably to you -- Thompson's theory of "disarmament" is arrogant and completely unhitched from reality. It's strikingly similar to Worley's gay-camps-with-electric-fences proposal in its utter silliness.

We shouldn't dismiss Thompson, though, merely because his campaign is long-dead and his ideas were inarguably dumb -- exactly the same pitch is being hurled by today's gun-control crowd.

Stupidity is always a threat to Liberty and, thanks to citizens who don't take time to think, it never goes out of style.

[Thompson ad from the June 9, 1921 Concordia Sentinel (Louisiana).]

More on 'Sullivan Law'

New York's insidious Sullivan Law, enacted in 1911 and discussed in yesterday's post, is still on the books. It was introduced and debated [sic] virtually unnoticed by the citizenry, thanks to a corrupt sponsor and sleepy legislators easily duped by "common good" rhetoric.

Once passed, the Sullivan Act had an immediate and obvious effect on law-abiding New Yorkers. Worse, it triggered a wave of similar bills in state legislatures nationwide.

Protests against such repressive and patently unconstitutional laws were mustered, for the most part, too late to stem legislative tide. The August 1912 issue of Field and Stream, for example, led its editorial page with "National Disarmament." A few excerpts:

"The so-called 'anti-pistol laws,' all of them modeled more or less upon the notorious Sullivan Law passed in New York State in 1911, have become a veritable epidemic, disarmament bills having been presented in forty-seven states, culminating in the drastic Simms bill introduced at Washington prohibiting the sale or use of firearms for any purpose or under any conditions whatever.

"It is high time that the sportsmen's magazines, revolver, rifle and shotgun clubs, and all to whom either the grooved-bore or the smooth-bore is a means of sport and recreation, got together in a campaign which would show the nation the real sentiment of the people with regard to these disarmament measures, and make it unsafe, politically, for any demagogue or cheap politician with a black-mailing scheme up his sleeve to introduce such bills into our State and national legislatures."

"The actual result of the Sullivan Law so far has been an unprecedented wave of crime in the big cities; bank messengers were robbed in automobiles with impunity as the burglars knew they were not armed; the number of murders have increased over the preceding year and at the same time respectable citizens, no matter whether citizens of New York State or not, were unable even so much as to transport a revolver across New York City without becoming a felon and liable to fine and imprisonment."

Perhaps it shouldn't surprise us that an outdoor-recreation magazine would criticize Sullivan Law, but Field and Stream wasn't alone in objecting. In its May 24, 1913 edition, The New York Times ran "A Change in the Pistol Law." From the Times editorial:

"That the concealed weapon law has not worked as well as was expected, or at any rate hoped, by those of us who commended it in principle, if not in all its details, is a fact too obvious for denial.

"Criminals are as well armed as ever, in spite of the sternness with which the law has been applied to a few of them, while there has been a rather general impression among honest men, mistaken but none the less real, that they were wrongly deprived, if not of the means, at least of the right to have the means, for defending themselves and their property. And if the dealers in firearms are keeping the required record of their sales -- which seems doubtful -- we are not hearing of the promised good effects, and perhaps the worst consequence of the law is that many good citizens, as well as all bad ones, have defied or ignored it without suffering much from their consciences."

"...The rightness of having or carrying a pistol is not at all a matter of money, but wholly one of character and avowable need. Something very much like a natural instinct tells the honest householder that to make him ask anybody's permission to have a revolver in his bureau drawer, or even under his pillow, is a hardship, tinged with absurdity."

Both of those editorials were right on the facts and righteous in their intent, and yet Sullivan Law remains in force today. What's more, literally thousands of similar measures (and worse) have been enacted over the last century -- at the federal, state and local levels. Why?

We, like Americans a hundred years ago, don't understand what it means to be vigilant. We continue to elect our representatives based on affinity and identity, pandering and promises of pork, instead of demanding unequivocal defense of constitutional principles.

And when we do earn a victory, we spike the ball -- meanwhile, the enemies of Liberty draw up new plays to exploit our overconfidence.

The threats to our Second Amendment right never vanish, never diminish. Considering what's at stake, we can't relax, ever. Just ask a New Yorker what the price is for failing to be vigilant: Sullivan Law, 100 years and counting.

Reading Room: 'Why Not Have A Pro-Gun Law?'

Guns magazine, which I've brought into KintlaLake Blog many times, produced its first issue in 1955. I find its evolution interesting, in part because it's been around almost exactly as long as I have.

Guns was marking its second year (and I my second month) when it published "Why Not Have a PRO-Gun Law?" by William B. Edwards. This is how the piece was previewed in the editors' up-front column:

"'Why Not Have A Pro-Gun Law,' is possibly the longest article we have ever published. It may well be also the most important article we have ever published. The 'call to arms' which ends the story, urging all firearms enthusiasts to write to the Director of the [BATFE], to protest new revised federal regulations in the gun law field is a little like Paul Revere's 'one if by land, two if by sea.' Only now it isn't the 'British are coming,' it is the bureaucrats."

Nothing about that dates it to 55 years ago. Like other articles I've shared here -- notably Horace Kephart's "Arms for Defense of Honest Citizens" and "The Right to Bear Arms" three decades earlier -- it reminds us that today's Liberty-loving Americans aren't the first to battle those who seek to dismantle our constitutional rights.

Here's how "Why Not Have a PRO-Gun Law?" begins:

"The anti-gun lawmakers are having a brisk season for 1957. With the practical nature of Andrew Volsteads and the subtlety of Carrie Nations they have attacked the root of all evil and the ills of mankind by the simple expedient of trying to take away all guns. Recently proposed Treasury regulations came close to this ideal; they could have destroyed the firearms industry and the shooting sport. Under the guise of protecting the people, these makers of rules who push anti-gun bills such as these are forging weapons, not into ploughshares, but into an iron collar of restraint, worthy of a fascist state. Year by year more anti-gun laws are proposed. Meanwhile, pro-gun collectors and shooters are mollified by the excuse 'these laws are thought up by well-meaning, innocent do-gooders.' Certainly a few anti-gun advocates may seem to be well-intentioned, but let's look at 'well meaning' legislators in the forefront of anti-gun legislation.

"Take a good look at genial, charming, personable 'Big Tim' Sullivan, who disarmed the citizens of crime-ridden New York in 1911 with the grandaddy of anti-gun laws, then went mad the following year and was confined. Says the biographical dictionary, 'Vice and crime were carefully organized in his territory and paid graft to his machine, as did many lines of legitimate business, including push-cart peddlers.... When charged with grafting, or partnership with crime and vice, he could rise in the [New York state] Assembly or on a campaign rostrum and, by telling the story of his tenement boyhood and the sacrifices of his mother, reduce even hardened political opponents to tears...."

"Big Tim was of the cloth of Adolph Hitler and the spellbinders of the ages. Election fights which stimulated the public pulse in those days hampered Big Tim's grasp on politics. So he pushed through a law requiring everyone in New York state to get a police permit to buy or possess a pistol or revolver. Sullivan knew he could control the police. This meant that when Sullivan's boys went on their ballot-box stuffing sprees, they could be reasonably sure of having no opposition. Big Tim was not a 'well-meaning legislator' in his pistol law ideas. The Sullivan law weakened the opposition, sweetened the Tammany kitty. Anti-gun bills are a popular stepping stone to political fame, and many in the anti-gun ranks share Big Tim's motives."

Notice that by the second paragraph the Guns article brings up New York State Senator Timothy "Big Tim" Sullivan and the Sullivan Act. There's a reason for that -- author Edwards knew that becoming familiar with the Sullivan Act was essential to readers' understanding of the insidious nature of gun control.

And it still is. A century after being enacted, Sullivan Law remains in force, oppressing citizens of (and visitors to) New York. As Michael A. Walsh wrote in the New York Post earlier this year:

"...Savor the irony of an edict written by a corrupt politician to save his bad guys from the electric chair’s now being used against law-abiding citizens from other states."

If we're to preserve our Second Amendment right, we must get acquainted with the history of threats against it. When we invoke the truism, "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns," we should be able to cite Big Tim Sullivan -- a crime boss who manipulated soft-headed fellow legislators into disarming law-abiding citizens, thus ensuring that his street gangs would have the upper hand.

"Why Not Have a PRO-Gun Law?" would be a good place to start our history lessons. For a pdf version of the September 1957 issue of Guns magazine, click here. The lengthy article begins on page 22.

This is what we're up against

I hate to keep kicking this steaming pile, really I do, but the news is teeming with rancid rhetoric worth passing along.

Now, if we can agree once again that it's Liberty (not the Big Gulp) that's under attack, we can go straight to the idiocy of Michael Tomasky of The Daily Beast. Here's what he said on Saturday:

"There's only one way to say something like this, and it's loud and proud and without apology: I wholeheartedly support Mike Bloomberg's war on sugar. It's unassailable as policy. Refined sugar is without question the worst foodstuff in the world for human health, and high-fructose corn syrup is little better. We are a fat country getting fatter and fatter, and these mountains of refined sugar that people ingest are a big part of the reason. The costs to the health-care system are enormous, so the public interest here is ridiculously obvious. Obesity is a killer. Are we to do nothing, in the name of the 'liberty' that entitles millions of people to kill themselves however they please, whatever their diabetes treatments costs their insurers?

"We have this 'liberty' business completely backward in this country, and if Bloomberg can start rebalancing individual freedom and the public good, God bless him, I say."

"It's a policy designed to guide people toward a certain kind of behavior. This talk of 'freedom' is absurd."

That, my friends, is nothing short of breathtaking contempt for personal responsibility. Tomasky makes it clear that he's afraid to meet life's opportunities and risks on his own, preferring to be swaddled in a blanket of government regulations.

His bald presumption that "we have this 'liberty' business completely backward in this country" is so false as to be laughable -- truth is, as a nation we're moving away from Liberty. His wish that government engage in "rebalancing individual freedom and the public good" ignores the fact that our individual liberties aren't merely eroding -- they're on the verge of collapse.

In other words, Tomasky and his anti-libertarian cronies rest their case on irresponsibility and lies.

This is the same ideology that routinely disarms law-abiding citizens, infringes constitutional rights and outsources personal defense to government authorities. It stifles excellence by promoting equal outcome and calling it "equal opportunity."

It "confuses the distinction between government and society," holding that each of us is entitled to government-approved and taxpayer-funded nourishment, housing, education, employment, healthcare and financial security, from cradle to grave.

Michael Tomasky, following his idol HRH Michael Bloomberg, carries the standard for those who would see this great country, which owes its very existence to courageous Founders who stood for Liberty, once and for all destroyed.

In the interest of clarity

in·fringe verb \in-ˈfrinj\

transitive verb
1 : to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another

Origin : Medieval Latin infringere, from Latin, to break, crush, from in- + frangere to break (first known use 1513)

Nanny (defined)

For a moment, try to ignore that the specific target of HRH Michael Bloomberg's latest nannying is large servings of "sugary drinks." Instead, think of it as manifest ignorance of Liberty in general -- because that's what it is.

With that in mind, check out what HRH Bloomberg said to MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell on Thursday:

"We've got to do something [about 'obesity']. Everybody is wringing their hands saying we've got to do something. Well, here is a concrete thing.

"You can still buy large bottles in stores. But in a restaurant, 16 ounces is the maximum that they would be able to serve in one cup. If you want to order two cups at the same time, that's fine. It's your choice.

"We're not taking away anybody's right to do things. We're simply forcing you to understand that you have to make the conscious decision to go from one cup to another cup."

"It's not perfect. It's not the only answer. It's not the only cause of people being overweight -- but we've got to do something. We have an obligation to warn you when things are not good for your health."

"I would just like to force the consumer to hopefully move over to the less fattening drinks and everybody will be better off."

That's one of the most un-American, anti-libertarian rants I've heard in a very long time. As I said of HRH Bloomberg in November of 2010:

"New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is...an arrogant son of a bitch who treats the U.S. Constitution like a menu, and for whom patriotism is little more than a hat he wears only for certain public appearances."

Again, it's not about soda pop -- or, for that matter, about trans-fats or firearms or smoking. It's about Liberty.

If you ever forget that, just remember what HRH Bloomberg said:

"We're not taking away anybody's right to do things. We're simply forcing you to understand...."

Get it?

Reprise: Iver Johnson & the Second Amendment

Among the most popular posts here on KintlaLake Blog is "Castle Doctrine, with a Norwegian accent." It features a 1917 ad for Iver Johnson's Arms & Cycle Works, noting its unapologetic expression of a citizen's right to defend home and family.

Here's another, clipped from a 1922 issue of Hearst's International:

The ad's bold headline -- "Self-preservation is the first law" -- sets the table for the copy that follows:

"Our forefathers who framed the Constitution of the United States recognized the right of citizens to protect their persons and property.

"And so the second amendment was inserted, which says, '...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.'"

If Iver Johnson or his sons were around today, I'd like to think that they'd be advocating for our Second Amendment rights -- with or without a commercial interest, political correctness be damned.

'The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense'

Today I'm going to return briefly to the words of Frédéric Bastiat -- specifically, to the opening paragraphs of his 1850 essay, The Law:

We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life -- physical, intellectual, and moral life.

But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural resources we convert them into products, and use them. This process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course.

Life, faculties, production -- in other words, individuality, liberty, property -- this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.

What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

Each of us has a natural right -- from God -- to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force -- his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right -- its reason for existing, its lawfulness -- is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force -- for the same reason -- cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.

Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?

If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.

Feel free to swap "nature" for "God" and "Creator," should you find Bastiat's deism bothersome -- it doesn't alter the meaning one bit.

Bastiat's fundamental premise (and indeed, the American ideal he so admired) is that individuals are superior to the governments they establish. We create law to collect and to protect, to organize and to represent -- not to replace and not to abdicate.

Life, liberty and property aren't granted to us by the governments we form and the laws we enact. The individual precedes and supersedes the collective construct.

Anything short of that ideal is "legal plunder, organized injustice."