"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory can be sure and not too costly, you may come to a moment when you have to fight with all the odds against you, and only a precarious chance to survive. There may even be a worse case - You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, and it will be better to perish than to live in slavery." - Winston Churchill

Last week, Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea published a column entitled “Preaching to gun owners is not the same as preaching to the choir” in which he touched on one of the greatest threats facing gun owners today … ourselves!

His mention of gun owner apathy is a perfect lead-in to this weeks “Myths of the Gun” column.  The myth we will be debunking today is the belief that merely paying a yearly membership fee to the NRA guarantees the protection of our gun rights.

Now let me hasten to add that this is not meant to be an attack on the NRA.  I am an NRA life member as well as an NRA certified instructor and they are a powerful force for good and deserve our support.  However, they cannot win the day alone.  Active involvement by gun owners in the public policy debate is required every single day!

A perfect example of the problem we face was a conversation I had at a local gun club several years ago.  After shooting at the pistol range, I wandered up to the clubhouse.  A bunch of the members had just finished shooting skeet and the clubhouse was packed.  I was talking to a small group about the benefits of being active in state level organizations when one of the other members became quite agitated about the political discussion in the clubhouse.  The conversation went something like this:

Me   

"We need to support these state level groups more.  If we don't continue to fight for our rights in an organized fashion, the government will continue to nibble away at them until we no longer even have the right to own guns."
   
Him   

"All these gun rights groups are just out to get our money.  Anyway, the government will NEVER take away our guns.  They are just too many of us.
   
Me    

"Look at what they have already done in places like Chicago, New York, New Jersey, California and DC. Don't think it can't happen here if people don't get involved in the legislative process.  Wouldn't it be better to join in the legislative fight now instead of letting it get to that point?"
   
Him   

"Well, come the day they show up to take MY guns, they can have them bullets first. But until then, stop bothering me."
 

At this point, a number of other members joined the conversation, and I allowed the intensity to die down.  But, afterward, as I was thinking about what was said, it became clear to me that this conversation was a microcosm of a serious issue facing the gun rights movement.

Simply said, the problem is that there is a great deal of political apathy among American gun owners.  Many of these politically apathetic gun owners diligently pay their NRA dues every year and expect that this will defeat all attacks on our freedoms at the federal and state level without any further involvement on their part.  When asked to support a state level organization, write a letter to the editor or to simply sign a petition, they become irritated and belligerent. 

When these gun owners are pressed about their true dedication to the cause of gun rights, they invariably offer the infamous "… from my cold dead fingers" or "They can have them … bullets first".  To these people, I would like to say, "Please stop with the clichés!  If your freedom means so little to you that you are not willing to fight for it politically, then do not insult my intelligence by claiming to be willing to lay down your life for it. "

I am not trying to sound harsh, but I feel that this has to be said.  Activism works!  On the other hand, complaining and whining about a law that you were too lazy to fight politically does not.  It only reinforces the negative stereotypes about gun owners.

In closing, I should say that I do understand the sentiment behind the clichés.  I too will fight to the end to preserve our 2nd Amendment rights, but I will not wait until the battle has been lost to take the field.

DC Councilmember Phil Mendelson

Last month the United States Senate approved a vote in Congress for DC provided that DC end its onerous and odious gun registration scheme.

Then last week DC's pragmatic  Mayor Fenty agreed that it would be a net gain for DC to win the right to vote in Congress even if Congress preempted DC's power to require gun registration. 

And DC civic leader Valencia Mohammed, director of Mothers of Unsolved Murders, a D.C. advocacy group for mothers of homicide victims, said she would welcome the deal, even though she has lost two sons to gun violence in the city.

Said Mohammed,

"This is one of the inalienable rights that I wanted. I want my vote to be counted. I want representation in Congress. And I also want the right to bear arms. I'm just looking at the history of my ancestors and what they went through and how they were shot and killed, tarred and feathered and burned to death. Guns was one of those things that they could not have and a tool for other people that kept them enslaved. I'm saying no more of that. I want to enjoy all of those rights that they were denied. . . . It's time."

But today Councilmember Phil Mendelson insists in a Washington Post commentary that Congress must allow DC gun registration scheme to continue.  Let's consider Mendelson's arguments in detail.

First, Mendelson said that the Supreme Court "upheld the constitutionality of gun registration." 

Um, wrong.  In DC v. Heller the Supreme Court said that

"Respondent conceded at oral argument that he does not 'have a problem with ... licensing' and that the District's law is permissible so long as it is 'not enforced in an arbitrary and capricious manner.' Tr. of Oral Arg. 74-75. We therefore assume that petitioners' issuance of a license will satisfy respondent's prayer for relief and do not address the licensing requirement."

128 S.Ct. 2783, 2819.

In other words, the issue of registration per se was not before the Heller Court. 

But regardless, the federal Supreme Court, as well as the high courts of the fifty states, have consistently struck down laws requiring Americans to pay fees and register with the government as a precondition to exercise constitutional rights.  E.g., Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105 (1943) (striking down Pennsylvania statute requiring license to sell religious materials because "[a] state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the Federal Constitution");  Talley v. California, 362 U.S. 60 (1960) (holding that the First Amendment provides the right to anonymous speech and striking down state requirement to obtain license to distribute literature); City of Tampa v. Tampa Times, Co., 153 Fla. 709 (Fla. 1943) (state may not require license to operate a newspaper); State v. Kerner, 181 NC 574 (NC 1921) (striking down state requirement to obtain license to openly carry handguns in public places); State v. Rosenthal, 75 Vt. 295 (Vt.1903) (requirement to obtain a permit to carry a pistol conceaeld or openly "is inconsistent with and repugnant to the Constitution and the laws of the state").

Given this historical constitutional tapestry disfavoring rights registration schemes, it seems unlikely that gun registration can be sustained, especially the onerous and odious scheme that the DC City Council instituted in December 2009. 

Second, Mendelson charges that the Ensign Amendment would allow "firearms purchases by people who have a history of violent behavior or who have committed domestic violence." 

Uh, not true.  The federal Gun Control Act of 1968 and its so-called "Lautenberg amendment" prohibits all gun possession by, and all gun sales to, persons who are convicted of violent felonies and even misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence. 

Third, Councilman Mendelson says that "when an unregistered gun is seized by police, they have encountered a criminal, not an otherwise law-abiding citizen."

Huh Phil?  This is just the self-fulfilling legality of gun registration. If DC were like most of America, which has no gun registration, a person possessing a gun is simply presumed to be law abiding until proven otherwise.

Gun registration is almost unknown in the United States.  Only 5 states require guns to be registered - New York, Massachusetts, Hawaii, California, and Michigan - yet only Hawaii requires registration of long guns and only New York has no way for new residents and non-residents to easily bring their guns into that state without running afoul of state law.  

Not only does DC require registration of long guns, but there is no way for new residents and non-residents to possess guns in the city.  No state has such an extreme gun registration regime. 

But there's more.

In December 2008, Phil Mendelson and the rest of the DC City Council enacted additional arbitrary and capricious standards for gun registration that have barred (1) registration of the same handgun the Supreme Court ordered DC to register last year for Mr. Heller, (2) registration of another  handgun based merely upon its color, (3) registration of another handgun because the manufacturer did not pay a fee to California, and (4) re-registration of certain rifles merely because they have scary pistol grips or some other cosmetically offensive feature.  A federal lawsuit challenging this scheme was filed two weeks ago.

So don't tell us Mr. Mendleson that you are defending garden variety gun registration.  You Sir are just spinning tall tales to defend a plainly constitutionally offensive scheme of gun control that in practice, actively bars Americans from possessing ordinary guns in America's City, the District of Columbia.

And that's why now more than ever its time for Congress to tell DC's rulers:  If you wanna vote in america's house, no more gun registration! 

Photo courtesy of http://olegvolk.net/gallery/technology/arms

Some Americans are unfortunately afflicted by hoplophobia, the  unnatural fear of guns, which causes them to lose all common sense in public policy discussion about the right to bear arms.  This fear may or may not be treatable by gun range therapy and other measures.

But a new phobia that has arisen over the last few years that afflicts some elected officials:  pistolgriphobia, the unnatural fear of pistol grips on otherwise ordinary long guns.  In a few states, state legislatures have gone as far to say that a rifle or shotgun with a pistol grip is an "assault weapon," requiring special registration, or perhaps banned from private ownership. 

The term "assault weapon" is a pejorative term for otherwise ordinary rifles and shotguns apparently pushed by Brady Campaign spinmaster Josh Sugarman in his March 1989 report "Assault Weapon: Analysis, New Research and Legislation."  Sugarman's report recommended exploiting:

  ". . . the public's confusion over fully-automatic
   machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons
   --  anything that looks like a machine gun
   is assumed to be a machine gun."

The result of that disinformation campaign was the now expired 1994 federal assault  weapons importation and manufacture  restrictions and some isolated but onerous anti-black rifle regulations enacted by a few state legislatures.
In December 2008, the DC City Council appears to have also become gripped with pistolgriphobia when it banned possession and registration of long guns with pistol grips, and even pistols with forward pistol grips. As a result, DC residents who have already registered such weapons, will become criminals in less than three years when the guns must be re-registered. 

There is no rational basis for either pistolgriphobia or the DC City Council's ban on rifles containing pistol grips.  Rifles with pistol grips may look scary to some people, but they are often less deadly than normal hunting rifles as the Washington Post's investigative reporter Tom Jackman discovered in reporting on the 2006 slaying of Fairfax County, VA police officer Vickey Armel by madman Michael Kennedy.  It turned out to be Kennedy's run of the mine hunting rifle, and not his "AK-47-style assault rifle," which fired the rounds capable of penetrating officer Armel's vest.

Objectively speaking, DC's ban on guns with pistol grips is nothing more than gun bigotry. If you don't believe me, then watch this video of a California police weapons expert showing how a normal looking ordinary rifle can be transformed into a scary black rifle banned by the CD City Council by the attachment of a few cosmetic gizmos, such as pistol grips [at time hack 5.54].  The video also includes testimony by a police expert [at time hack 9:33] dispelling the myth that 'black rifles" with pistol grips are easily converted into real machine guns. 

The DC City Council's pistolgriphobia is just one more reason why, it's time for Congress to tell DC's rulers:  If you wanna vote in America's House, no more gun registration!  

                     This is a machine gun

So there I was quickly scanning my newspapers last Thursday morning while riding a Yellow Line Metro train from Huntington Station in Fairfax County toward the River City, also known as the District of Columbia. 

Ahaauhhh!??? I exclaimed. 

Heads turned on that quiet morning train filled with freshly scrubbed but tired commuters. 

Red faced, I did not dare look up as I incredulously read the newspaper correction over and over:

"U.S. law-enforcement officials have seen a spike in heavy-caliber rifles heading to Mexico. A World News article Saturday incorrectly quoted William D. Newell of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives describing a spike in machine guns. "Machine gun" is a technical term for a classification of a firearm that doesn't describe the type of weapon he was referring to."

This correction was printed on page 2 of the Wall Street Journal on March 5, 2009, and made me feel like I had slipped into an Orwellian world of “newspeak.” You know, the language being promoted by the ruling elites of England in Orwell’s book 1984. Newspeak is closely based on English but has a greatly reduced and simplified vocabulary and grammar whose aim is to make any alternative thinking impossible by removing any words or possible constructs which describe the ideas of freedom, rebellion and so on. 

Let’s review some basic terms:  

A "semi-automatic firearm" fires one round with every pull of the trigger, just like a revolver.  

A “machine gun” fires “automatically” two or more rounds with one pull of the trigger.
M60 Machine Gun

An “assault rifle” is a military term for a rifle which can be fired semi-automatically or as a machine gun, automatically, by way of a switch to select the mode of fire.

But an “assault weapon” is just an Orwellian term coined by anti-gun politicians for “scary looking rifles” which are not machine guns – just dressed up cosmetically to look like military assault rifles with pistol grips, flash suppressors, and perhaps a bayonet mounting lug.

And as the Washington Post’s investigative reporter Tom Jackman discovered in reporting on the 2006 slaying of Fairfax County, VA police officer Vickey Armel by madman Michael Kennedy, it turned out to be Kennedy’s hunting rifle, and not his “AK-47-style assault rifle,” which fired the rounds capable of penetrating officer Armel’s vest.

Misuse of the term “machine gun” to describe ordinary run of the mine rifles by the Wall Street Journal goes to show you that when it comes to guns, the mainstream media knows no shame. Labeling a machine gun a “technical term” for certain rifles is about as kookie as saying a tank is a special type of automobile.

But like Syme said to Winston Smith, “[i]t's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word?” George Orwell, 1984 at 51 (1949). 

   Courtesy Oleg Volk, A Human Right

It looks like I'll need a break in the news to get back to my follow-up on Mike Bloomberg. In a way it's nice knowing his legal setbacks have caused his importance as a priority for gun owner attention to decline. But the stories pushing him to the back burner represent real threats we need to not only be aware of, but to take action on. Without delay.

It's no surprise to active shooters that ammunition sales are soaring, causing price hikes and shortages. We've seen more and more Americans waking up to gun rights in recent months, and we've seen long-time gun owners stockpiling in anticipation of anticipated bans.

We've even seen (and defused) some rumors, and passed other information along hoping to find the truth. And we've noted backdoor attacks on ammunition using the environmentalism club, and an "accountability" ploy designed to enrich a few at the rest of our expense.

Add to all of this a heightened demand from law enforcement (what, you didn't think citizens were the only ones getting serious about supplies, did you?), and conditions are ripe for severe shortages. All they need are a little push.

I noted that push last Friday. I passed along an alert from our friends at Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, who in turn passed along an alert from our friends at Montana Shooting Sports Association. The bottom line?

An agency of the Department of Defense has just directed that all military fired brass must be destroyed.

What does this mean to ammunition supplies?

Gordon Hutchinson, "The Shootist" tells us:

Now it has come clear...now we know what they intend to do.

It is an end-run around Congress. They don't need to try to ban guns--they don't need to fight a massive battle to attempt gun registration, or limit "assault" weapon sales.

Nope. All they have to do is limit the amount of ammunition available to the civilian market, and when bullets dry up, guns will be useless.

Hutchinson presents "copies of two letters sent to Georgia Arms just Thursday evening--effectively canceling a contract he had to purchase 30,000 pounds of expended military brass in .223, 7.62mm, and .50 caliber," and concludes :

From now on, remanufacturers of military brass will not be able to buy surplus brass from DOD--actually from Government Liquidators, llc.--the corporation that sells surplus materials for the U.S. government. At least, not in any form recognizable as once-fired brass ammunition.

Now all brass ammunition will have to be shredded, and sold as scrap...with this hit, ammunition prices will go through the roof in the next year.

At a time when we're told the government needs more money.

We're also told Tom Gresham featured this topic prominently in his Sunday broadcast (hey, he also had this guy on in the first hour.

So what do you need to do?

Start with a strong objection to your representatives in the Senate and the House. Hutchinson presents a good letter to template off of.

There's one other avenue we need to factor in. MSSA, through the JPFO alert tells us:

[Max] Baucus is Chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee. He could simply call the Pentagon and tell them that if they don't reverse this DLA directive that the Pentagon will suffer a mysterious budget cut of several billion dollars. Also, Baucus's former Chief of Staff, Jim Messina, is now Deputy Chief of Staff at the White House. If Max called Jim and asked, Jim could fix this problem with a phone call too.

Really? Because Baucus is one of those NRA-endorsed Democrats I keep hoping will place principle above party pressure when it's really turned on. As I see it, NRA needs to do two things:

1. Get and publicize complete information on what is happening (so far, I see no news release and no alert), or in their words:

If it's a legitimate concern, rest assured your NRA-ILA will promptly address it and will give you the straight story.

Please. And without delay.

2. Let Sen. Baucus and the other "pro-gun" Democrats (and Republicans) know that--unlike the Holder nomination--this is something that will affect their ratings.

And GOA: We could do well with some immediate leadership in this matter from you, too.