(Vin) A gun in the store. (Long, but well worth the read)

[John/az2]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>
FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
EDITORS: DUE TO LENGTH, PLEASE CONSIDER THIS A BONUS ESSAY. AN
ADDITIONAL NEW COLUMN OF REGULAR LENGTH, FOR RELEASE 7-25, WILL MOVE 7-21.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED JULY 23, 2000
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
'That scared the crap out of me, that someone could have a gun in the store'
by Vin Suprynowicz


Editor's note: This essay was prepared for the new "Doing Freedom!" web
site, at www.DoingFreedom.com, and initially appeared there at the site's
inception on June 23.

# # #

On Monday, May 22, Sandra Suter was standing in the check-out line of the
Wal-Mart in Spring Hill, Fla. when she saw several store employees
wrestling with a knife-wielding man.

The employees had apprehended 50-year-old Willie J. Redding of Brookville
-- reported by the St. Petersburg Times to have previous convictions for
selling drugs and dealing in stolen property -- attempting to steal a VCR.

Dropping his loot, Redding pulled a small blade and lunged, cutting two
employees, according to a Hernando County sheriff's report.

"Drop the knife! Drop the knife!" one of the bleeding employees was yelling.

Mrs. Suter, a 53-year-old grandmother, reacted as she had been trained.

"I have a concealed weapons permit," she announced as she walked up to
the armed assailant and presented the .40-caliber pistol she keeps in her
purse. "Either drop the knife, or I'll shoot you."

Getting smart in a hurry, Mr. Redding surrendered, was jailed, and gained
release the next day on $3,000 bond.

"I just did what I thought was right," Grandma Suter told Jamie Malernee
of the St. Petersburg Times. "It was the first time I've ever had to pull
my gun other than at the firing range."

Suter's husband and grown children are calling the 5-foot-3 homemaker "a
hero," reporter Malernee admits.

But then the Times story goes on:

"Spokesmen for the Hernando County Sheriff's Office and Wal-Mart advise
civilians not to get involved in such situations. 'We want to keep our
stores a pleasant place to shop, so we would never encourage our customers
to arm themselves,' said Wal-Mart spokesman Tom Williams. ...

"Shopper Lorinda Smith, who was in the candy aisle during the
confrontation, said Tuesday that she was more frightened by Suter's gun
then the man's knife.

" "That scared the c--- out of me, that someone could have a gun in the
store," said Smith of Hernando Beach. 'This one lady was in there with her
children and when she saw (the gun) she was like, "Get on the ground! Get
on the ground!" If I was there with my kids, I would have had a heart
attack.' "

Frightened at the sight of a responsible fellow citizen -- a
five-foot-three grandmother -- using a legally licensed handgun to stop a
crime without even firing a shot.

Think about that. Would the ladies have been frightened if uniformed
policemen had shown up and brandished guns in the process of arresting
three-time loser Willie Redding? Of course not -- even though,
statistically, police officers accidentally shoot the wrong person in far
more cases than do citizens with legally issued concealed-carry permits.

"NRA officials did not return phone calls," reporter Malernee continues.
"Kim Mariani, spokeswoman for Handgun Control Inc., said Suter's actions,
while brave, could have hurt someone.

" 'God forbid something went wrong," Mariani said. "It just escalates the
situation, and a lot of times it's unnecessary.' "

Reporter Jamie Malernee has clearly done what she thought was her job,
calling all parties who might be expected to comment on the incident.
(We'll leave aside for the moment the fact that the NRA, which endorsed the
gun control bills of 1934 and 1968 (start ital)and(end ital) the Brady
Bill, actually comprises a larger gun control advocacy group than Handgun
Control -- that placing a call to Gun Owners of America or JPFO might have
been more appropriate in any search for "balance.")

But clearly, the formulaic structure of this story -- even though it's
admirably complete -- seeks to "balance" any implication that the carrying
and use of firearms by law-abiding citizens is natural or proper.

I believe something important is going on, here.


# # #


On May 31, I sent out a syndicated column consisting of a proposed list
of 15 generic questions for this year's political candidates.

My fourth question was: "Are residents of our state free to engage in any
business they choose? Is operating any local business for profit a
privilege, for which a citizen should apply for a permit, paying a fee or
tax?"

Mike Davis, a Republican candidate for the 14th Assembly district here in
Las Vegas, a self-avowed NRA member and "just an ordinary guy, a business
owner, and a father," replied:

"Of course you have the right to go into business. My wife and I did. I
just don't think the process of obtaining a license is so onerous."

I wrote back:

Hi, Mike -- a right is a thing you can do without filing an application,
getting a license, or paying a fee. Your statement is akin to saying "Of
course you have a right to attend the church or temple of your choice. I
just don't think the process of filing your application, paying your fee,
and waiting for your 'Freedom of Religion License' is so onerous."

Do I really have to point out to you that the courts have held -- will
always hold -- that once you "voluntarily subject yourself to such a
regulatory regimen," the regulatory agency has the discretion to
unilaterally change its rules, canceling your license or permit at any
time? Didn't the DEA take away (Las Vegas general practitioner) Dr.
Dietrich Stoermer's permit to write prescriptions, after he'd been
unanimously acquitted of "writing too many pain-killer prescriptions" at
trial?

This is what we call "converting a right into a privilege," and it's why
the Supreme Court ruled as recently as 1944 -- not that anyone pays
attention, any more -- that things are either rights or privileges; they
can't be both. If you endorse business licensing, you are saying there is
no right to open a business.

My fourteenth question in that May 31 essay was:

Is the war on drugs succeeding? Can it succeed? Should all drugs be
legalized? If not, why not?

Mr. Davis the Republican candidate replied:

"A majority of voters believe the War on Drugs is necessary, and that the
current penalties for possession or sale of illegal substances are not
excessive or unfair. Yes, we have all heard the argument that Prohibition
didn't work, but few are convinced that this is the same thing."

I wrote back:

A majority was once solidly in favor of burning witches and Jews at the
stake, as well. I'm glad to see confirmed that our typical Republican
politician, today, has no established principles concerning human rights
which he feels obliged to apply to such an issue (adults don't even have a
right to control what they put in their own bodies?), but would instead
have gladly enforced Hitler's "race laws" -- or the wise and compassionate
rules of jurisprudence which prevailed under the Spanish Inquisition -- so
long as "A majority of voters believe the War on Jews is necessary, and
that the current penalties are not excessive or unfair. Yes, we have all
heard the argument that witches and Jews didn't really cause the plague or
the Great Depression, but few are convinced that this is the same thing."

The Republican candidate replied:

"Is that called 'hyperbole'? ... Take a poll; the voters aren't ready to
give up the fight. If I can paraphrase Jefferson, it is the duty of all
citizens to subject themselves to the will of the majority."

My eleventh question in that May 31 essay was:

"If police serve a search warrant which does not list any firearms, but
they find firearms in the house being searched, is it OK for them to seize
the firearms anyway? Why or why not?"

Self-styled conservative candidate Mr. Davis replied:

"Are they legal weapons? During the search, were any arrests made?"

I wrote back:

Mike -- given the need to deflect attention from an illegal search,
police can (start ital)always(end ital) find something to arrest someone
for, even if it's as gossamer thin a fall-back as "child neglect (dirty
home)," "resisting arrest," or overdue library books.

The Fourth Amendment says our right to be secure in our houses, papers,
and effects "shall not be violated," and that the only warrants which shall
be valid are those which "particularly describe the place to be searched,
and the persons or things to be seized."

It's now routine for cops to acquire a one-size-fits-all drug warrant,
break into a home with a battering ram, find few or no drugs, but seize all
the firearms found there. (As a matter of fact, if they find no drugs,
they're all the more likely to make a point of seizing the weapons, to
justify their raid retroactively and put the victim on the defensive. See
Waco, where the BATF only got federal military equipment by claiming David
Koresh had a "suspected methamphetamine lab" in his church.)

Obviously, they then proceed to (start ital)claim(end ital) all the
seized weapons are "illegal" (what else would they say?) The burden of
proof is then on the property owner -- who has probably suffered thousands
of dollars worth of damage to his home, lost his job, and had his bank
account levied to boot -- to hire a lawyer and go to court at his own
expense, attempting to prove those firearms (start ital)aren't(end ital)
illegal.

(As a matter of fact, none of the weapons found in the church at Waco
were illegal. But the government still has every one of them, seven years
later. And how would you like to try and prove your Chinese SKS was
imported before 1987, and thus has a legal bayonet? Got the original
importation invoice?)

This is what you endorse, Mike, by declining to stick with the Bill of
Rights, which requires us all to simply answer "No; they may not seize any
firearms not listed on the warrant. Any such seizure would be chargeable as
larceny."

Manicuring the current system along its edges, proposing no return to
Constitutional rule (let alone underlying human liberties) unless it
commands "majority support," is nothing but a recipe for continuing on the
same toboggan ride to tyranny.

The fifth question in my May 31 quiz was: "Do residents of this state
have a right to buy and keep machine guns? Why or why not?"

Candidate Davis, the self-styled Republican NRA member, replied:

"18 USC 922 prohibits the possession or sale of a machine gun."

I wrote back:

This is clearly untrue, MIke. I know many Nevadans who own perfectly
legal machine guns. You can go rent and shoot one at the Gun Store on East
Tropicana, any day of the week. (They even advertise in the yellow pages,
under "Guns.") Don't you wonder why the owners have never been raided and
arrested? All federal law requires is that one pay a $200 tax to the BATF
-- a tax payment which must, curiously, be accompanied by a set of
fingerprints. (If this doesn't "infringe" the right to keep and bear arms,
are you folks planning to start fingerprinting us for our "Freedom of
religion licenses," soon? Our "Freedom of the press licenses"?)

Candidate Davis replied:

"I thought automatic weapons had been banned. ... at least that was the
info I got from BATF. As a card-carrying member of the NRA, I'm all for
protecting your 2nd amendment rights. I don't own a gun myself, however.
Since your obviously in favor of private ownership of machine guns, why
don't you extend your argument to the constitutionally-protected right to
carry a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, or shoulder launched
anti-aircraft missile?


# # #

I believe enough relevant data is now on the table to form a hypothesis.

When prominent daily newspapers can get away with lecturing us that
firearms properly used by law-abiding citizens to stop crimes and prevent
injuries are "more frightening than a criminal's knife," when even
self-styled Republican NRA-member politicians in once-fairly-libertarian
Nevada can ridicule the Second Amendment, sarcastically asking me "Why
don't you extend your argument to the constitutionally-protected right to
carry a ... shoulder launched anti-aircraft missile?" we have lost.

In the battle between freedom and bondage, the forces of freedom have
lost. A century of wall-to-wall collectivist propaganda in the government
youth camps ("public schools") has finally done its job.

In the past, for a hundred thousand years and into the beginning of this
century, it was well understood that the education of boys past the age of
12 was best undertaken by older men, who would take the lads out into the
woods and fields and teach them the courage, the cooperation, the
concentration and the skills necessary to become hunters, warriors,
craftsmen, artisans, and fathers.

It is no coincidence that today most of our high school valedictorians
are little girls. I bear no grudge against the ladies gaining access to
college and career, but what has happened in recent decades is that our
mommified socialist welfare camps now treat male adolesence as a de facto
disease, dosing up nearly half of those suffering this newly diagnosed
"testosterone poisoning" with various mind-numbing nostrums, from Ritalin
to Luvox to Prozac, primarily to get them to sit still and stop causing
trouble, though each of these is acknowledged by its manufacturer to cause
dementia, mania, and/or hallucinated voices in a statistically significant
percentage of users.

Add this to the new presumption that an arrest for "child abuse" is
appropriate for any father who keeps guns in the home; pulls his kids out
of school for hunting trips; physically disciplines his kids; or uses
psychoactive drugs in his religious observances (yes, even Indians.) Then,
when a small percentage of these effectively fatherless
government-manufactured young morons and maniacs finally respond by
shooting up those responsible for their chemical castration, the circle is
closed when the Katie Couric Lapdog Press blames ... who?

The school nurse with her experimental chemical sedatives? No, no, no. We
blame the evil spirits supposedly resident in those symbols of male
independence, power, and freedom, the dark power of that inanimate but
totemic object of wood and steel ... the gun!

What is our understanding of the difference between freedom and bondage,
and what do we imagine are the prevailing conditions that bring large
numbers of people into either state?

The founding fathers of this nation made a close study of the Roman
republic, and the way that government degenerated into despicable tyranny.
They attempted to craft for us a system which would prevent the
concentration of powers into a central government -- a "new caesar" --
warning us that it was vital that the military power be retained in the
hands of a citizen militia (Roman citizens could initially be identified by
the fact that they, and they alone, wore swords), rather than in any
mercenary "special militia" or standing legion owing personal loyalty to
their general or the current caesar -- like today's BATF, FBI, or National
Guard.

By the time Rome fell, tax rates were so high that farmers were literally
selling their daughters into prostitution to meet the onerous levies that
supported the decadent court. In the provinces, the 5th century's torrent
of Huns and Visigoths were probably widely greeted in much the same way the
Ukraine initially welcome Hitler's troops as liberators in 1941, figuring
nothing could be worse than Joe Stalin.

Then descended upon the western world the appropriately named Dark Ages,
with their stultifying codes of political and religious orthodoxy, enforced
by the inquisitor and the stake.

Freedom of religion, or of the press? Even minor variance from the one
accepted faith would get you burned after your tongue was torn out, and
peasant literacy was itself grounds for suspicion of sorcery -- priests
graciously provided by the landed class would read you anything you needed
to know out of the Bible.

Property rights? The medieval serf worked his master's land and lived in
his master's cottage entirely at the baron's whim. The master of the castle
could even descend and impregnate the peasant's wife on the peasant's
wedding day, if the urge struck m'lord.

Why? Why?

Because for a thousand years, no village of peasants with their scythes
and pitchforks could stand up to a mere handful of the helicopter gunships
of that time, the mounted knight in his coat of mail.

Only the landed gentry could afford a warhorse and a suit of armor. Let
even three or four of these medieval equivalents of the Abrams tank enter
your village, and the peasant's only hope was to drop to one knee and plead
for his life. Take the cattle, take our daughters, use them as you will ...

Why did this ever change? Do you think it's because the guys in charge
just got tired of having it all their way?

Of course not. This changed in the mid-1400s, at Crecy and Agincourt,
when mere English commoners found they could destroy the cream of the
French aristocracy -- drowning thousands of armored noble knight in the mud
beneath their own toppled horses -- by dint of one simple, technological
advance: the Welsh longbow, an inexpensive weapon best deployed by large
gangs of anonymous peasants.

The French considered this so barbarous they threatened to cut off the
index and middle fingers of any English archers they caught, rendering them
incapable of using their dreaded bows. The Brits responded by defiantly
waving these two fingers in the air -- or sometimes just one of them.

Far from banning them from bearing arms, by the 16th century English law
actually (start ital)required(end ital) commoners to practice their archery
at least one weekend per month, to remain ready should the king need them.
Suddenly -- coincidentally? -- the "rights of Englishmen" began to be
interpreted to mean the rights of commoners under the law, not just the
rights of nobles, as envisioned in the Magna Carta of 1215.

This new state of affairs reflected the new reality of the field of
battle, where commoners could and did dictate terms to defeated monarchs --
even going so far as to behead the King of England in 1649.

Can you imagine that? They cut off his head.


# # #

Of course, some lessons take a little time to sink in. Marching south
from Lake Champlain to the Hudson in the early autumn of 1777, Gentleman
Johnny Burgoyne sent out mercenary Hessian scouting parties to demand
fodder for his horses from the local peasantry.

The New York farmers watched the brilliantly-uniformed Hessians walk into
their farmyards demanding free food for the general's army ... and shot
them dead, sometimes wiping out entire detachments to a man.

This was unheard of in continental Europe, where most peasants were still
expected to know their place.

But things only got worse for Burgoyne's army, its morale sapped by the
heat, the humidity, the sudden storms, the bugs and the venomous snakes of
what Americans now consider the "resort district" of Glens Falls and Lake
George. (Thank goodness these wimps didn't find themselves in North Florida
-- the Yankees would probably have ended up owning Devon, Somerset, and
half of Wales.)

As the exhausted army and its overladen baggage wagons emerged from the
woods and climbed toward the open lands around Saratoga, a few isolated
bands of Yankee farmers in homespun took up position behind the trees, and
began (start ital)"firing on the officers' persons."(end ital)

I have always loved that quotation from Johnny Burgoyne's journal. The
words so succinctly capture the outrage and incredulity of a dying class.
British officers knew they ran the risk of being struck, along with their
men, by un-aimed volley fire. But to have enemy peasants -- commoners --
purposely take aim at an officer's person, using a Pennsylvania or Kentucky
rifle which by an outlandish historical accident proved to be more accurate
than the standard-issue British Brown Bess musket ... well, it was
unthinkable.

Students of American history know it was the leadership of Gen. Benedict
Arnold of Connecticut -- rising again and again despite his wounds to lead
from the front as his horse was shot from under him -- that turned the tide
of battle at Saratoga, the turning point of the Revolutionary War, the
battle that brought in France as America's ally and thus sealed Cornwallis'
eventual fate.

But few recall the first question that occurred to both King Louis and
King George when news of Burgoyne's surrender in October of '77 reached the
European courts:

Who in hell had Burgoyne surrendered (start ital)to(end ital)? Washington
and the entire Continental Army -- excepting the aforementioned Gen. Arnold
and a handful of other officers in fancy coats -- were in Philadelphia,
withdrawing before the successful (but finally meaningless) siege of Gen.
Howe.

The answer -- inconceivable to the kind of European mind that ordered the
band to play "The World Turned Upside Down" at Yorktown in 1781 -- was that
Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne had surrendered an entire British army to the
American militia, to nothing but a gang of New York and New England (start
ital)farmers(end ital).

Is there a "control sample" that tends to confirm my thesis for why
commoners in America (and, to a lesser extent and until recently, places
like Australia and Western Europe) managed to throw off the chains of
feudal tyranny and become far more "free" in the centuries after 1500 --
with all the advantages of economic, scientific, and technological progress
with which we're so familiar ... even if we've forgotten how they were won?

Yes, I think so. After toying with imported European firearms in the late
1500s, the shoguns of Japan banned the instruments entirely. In fact, under
the decree of the shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598), issued on the 8th
day of the seventh month, Tensho 16, "The people of the various provinces
are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, short
swords, bows, spears, firearms, or other types of arms. The possession of
unnecessary implements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues,
and tends to foment uprisings."

So, artificially and in an almost ideally isolated experiment, while
commoners gained increasing rights in direct proportion to their importance
and strength on the battlefields of the rest of the world in the next 250
years, Japan remained (until Commodore Perry brought this experiment to a
crashing close in 1853) one of the few places in the world where the
peasant remained in absolute feudal subservience -- their very lives
forfeit at a whim -- to the hereditary aristocracy, with their war-horses
and their deadly steel and lacquered leather armor.

Even today, the Japanese are so far behind the curve that brought the
western world the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence and the
Bill of Rights that the average Japanese "salaryman" happily tolerates
annual, unannounced "courtesy police inspections" of his home to make sure
he's "protected" from the danger of owning self-defense weapons, and
considers it perfectly routine and even desirable that suspects frequently
"commit suicide" by "jumping" out of high windows while under police
interrogation, thus sparing their famililes further embarrassment.

Commoners "presumed innocent till proven guilty"? Not in a land where the
people have no guns.


# # #

We are gathered now to inquire: Is America about to enter a new era of
freedom, or a new era of bondage?

Using "well-regulated" as an 18th century synonym for "well-practiced,"
for "oiled up and ready to go" (English grandfather clocks are stamped
"regulated" after they've been determined to keep the proper time; an
English gunsmith "regulates" a double rifle by making sure both barrels
will hit the same target with the same load) -- pose yourself this question
of the day:

Suppose the president of the United States got fed up tomorrow with some
band of recalcitrant rebels operating in your city. For our purposes (as
well as for his), it doesn't matter whether he chooses to condemn these
folks as drug dealers, home schoolers, child abusers, tax resisters, or
obstreperous gun nuts who refuse to turn in their "murderous, paramilitary"
arms as ordered.

The president orders the National Guard and the FBI's thousand-strong,
black-shirted paramilitary "Hostage Rescue Team" into your city to clean
out the pockets of "antisocial, bandit resistance" under an emergency
decree of martial law.

Quick: With the weapons you have on hand, and the degree of organization
currently maintained between yourself and your neighbors (envisioned by our
founding fathers as members along with you of your local militia), is your
ability and likelihood to resist this unconstitutional incursion on your
liberties by a few thousand professional soldiers armed with tanks,
helicopter gunships, and fully-automatic M-16 rifles more closely akin to
the condition of the citizen farmers who met General Burgoyne at Saratoga,
armed with weapons (start ital)better(end ital) than the standard British
army issue musket -- that is to say, of a "well-regulated militia,
necessary to the security of a free state," whose right to keep and bear
military style arms (like the householders of today's free and peaceful
Switzerland, each expected to keep a fully-automatic machine gun in the
closet) has never been "infringed"?

Or would your circumstance be more closely akin to that of those medieval
peasants we were discussing, whose only chance of survival was found in
laying down their scythes and pitchforks, dropping to their knees, and
begging the king's soldiers for mercy?

Now: Given your answer, are the citizens and elected "people's
representatives" of this nation today crying out that, in order to be
prepared to defend their liberties as they are expected to under the
Constitution, they need to enter on a crash course of manufacturing and
acquiring -- in civilian hands, without any government license, permit,
tax, registration, or paperwork -- rocket-propelled anti-tank grenades,
shoulder-launched heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles, heavy mortars, and
fully-automatic machine guns by the millions?

Or are Wal-Mart customers now reliably reported ululating that they are
"more frightened by a fellow citizen's gun than a robber's knife," while
Republican members of the NRA now running for state Assembly in
once-Libertarian Nevada ask me with sneering sarcasm, "Since your obviously
in favor of private ownership of machine guns, why don't you extend your
argument to the constitutionally-protected right to carry a
rocket-propelled grenade launcher, or shoulder launched anti-aircraft
missile?"


# # #

I do not sit down today to write a call to arms. I am 50 years old, and I
believe I have learned a few things.

I do not see in 96 percent of the population of this nation today the
slightest hint of the smoldering fire of lust for liberty that burst forth
to illuminate our ancestors' struggles in 1775 or 1861.

Yes, the final battle of a 70-year campaign is about to be joined. But I
believe it is my duty to the truth to report that this battle is, for all
practical purposes, already lost.

When they are done registering all Americans' firearms -- rendering them
expensive and hard to acquire and embarrassing to carry, arresting those
who refuse to store pistol and magazine and ammunition locked in separate
safes in separate rooms until their worth to defend us against jackbooted
SWAT teams busting down our doors in the middle of the night is reduced to
nil -- when they finally get around to sending out the notices (oh, whoops,
they've already done so in England, in Australia, in Staten Island, and now
in California) that we have to turn in the most "dangerous" ones, first the
deadly semi-auto "assault rifles" with their flash hiders and bayonet lugs,
then the "cheap Saturday Night Specials" that "can only be used for crime,"
then the dangerous long-range scoped "sniper" rifles ...

Yes, then I suspect a few pockets of resistance will then flame up, too
late, in the rural South and the inland West.

For a time, a few regional IRS offices will burn, and the army and the
other increasingly indistinguishable federal police forces will get a
chance to practice the urban deployment and cauterization they've been busy
practicing.

But I'm sorry, I don't think it's going to look very much like the Second
(or is it now the Third?) American Revolution ... especially as covered by
our current lapdog, collectivist press.

Instead, I figure it's going to take the federals about as long to clean
us out as it took the British Army to stamp out the last traces of Highland
culture after the Battle of Culloden in 1746 -- after which our descendents
can look forward to a couple centuries of the same kind of "liberty" the
old-time Scots could tell you about, banned from even wearing their tartans
or speaking their native tongue in public.

If I am not an old man yet, I soon will be. I am 50 and sometimes my back
hurts. Glory in war is a young man's dream. I harbor no illusions about the
"romance" of scampering about in the hills, sleeping on rocks or snow,
dodging the gunships for as many days or weeks as I'd be likely to last
before I either surrendered to the first enemy smart enough to offer me a
hot bowl of soup and a shower, or else managed to take a few with me in a
glorious suicidal charge against some meaningless rural roadblock ...
precisely the way the real-life Crocodile Dundee died, last year -- newly
banned rifle in hand -- in North Australia.
(www.newsmax.com/articles?a=2000/6/26/12629)

But frankly, what I now pray daily is that I may find the courage to
somehow contrive to lie among the fallen by the time our Great Disarmament
-- now underway since 1934 -- is finally done.

Because after it's over, a kind of "peace" will indeed descend on this
land ... broken only by occasional paroxysms of cryptic violence,
unintelligible to the common class whose funerals will be dismissed as
"light collateral damage," as the armies of the various warlords vie for
control in Washington City.

(Fans of "democracy" needn't worry -- I'm sure they'll continue the
tradition of requiring the unarmed peasants to vote every four years to
confirm the legitimacy of whatever warlord is currently in power.)

All the beauty pageant contestants are taught to wish for "world peace."
But in fact, freedom and progress have ever developed only in lands of
ongoing struggle -- albeit shot and shell can usually be supplanted,
between pirate suppression raids, by the "creative destruction" of healthy
commercial trade and competition: war under a different guise.

But that's not the kind of robust, chaotic, pluralistic "peace" the
victim disarmament gang have in mind. No, their vision of a peaceful world
has been common to Caesar, to Stalin, to Hitler and Mao: a world at peace
... because no peasant dares rise from his knees as they ride past.

We used to wish each other health and long life. Join with me instead,
now, in wishing that we do not survive to see the culmination of this new
(start ital)Pax Americana.(end ital)

I've already seen enough.


Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas
Review-Journal. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom
Movement, 1993-1998," is available at $24.95 postpaid by dialing
1-800-244-2224; or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.

***


Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved,
as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V.
Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and
thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series
of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

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[/quote]

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John/az
"When freedom is at stake, your silence is not golden, it's yellow..." RKBA!
www.cphv.com

[Cypselus]

It gave me chills.

[OF]

Amazing essay. I'm creating an 'RKBA Primer' consisting of collections of quotes, essays, research papers, statistics, analysis and even a collection of writings and opinions from the anti's. I'm trying to keep it to just the 'best of the best'. This is probably going to paste it's way in there, I'd imagine.

- gabe

[Oleg Volk]

...and a very nasty "been there, seen that, now locked, loaded and scared" feeling, too.

CR

[Dennis Olson]

Oh... My... God...

Too bloody true.

What now?

[bookkie]

This writer has fallen victim to one of the big lies put out by the anti-gunners. That lie is that in today’s world the citizen’s would not have a chance against our modern military. Would you or a group of your friends go up against our military? Of course not, it would be suicide. This is not how the next war will be fought. Everyone who has even considered the possibilities knows how it will be done.

But, and our great fear is the complete disarmament of the citizens. One other point… currently there are about 4% of the population (by the authors estimates) that will fight…. That amounts to approximately 10 million people. That number will grow when the masses see the military used against their own. Sure there will be instances where the military will roll in and do weapons sweeps, but when the vast majority of the people see that, there will be a lot more who are awakened. I’m not making this argument to foster taking up arms, but rather as a rebuttal against the authors argument.

I do agree with him completely as to the ownership of weapons though. Full autos, small rocket launchers etc. should be in the hands of the citizens. Every weapon that would guarantee that we the people could defeat the modern military are the ones that we are allowed. Some will think that I’m extreme, well maybe I am. But is not the purpose of the 2nd to give the people the means of defending their liberties? If these weapons are not available then how can this be done?



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Richard

The debate is not about guns,
but rather who has the ultimate power to rule,
the People or Government.
RKBA!

[Brett Bellmore]

Did you ever notice that old geezers tend to confuse the state of their backs with the state of the world?

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Sic semper tyrannis!

[James E]

Customer Smith said...when I saw that big ol nasty ol gun I just knew it was going to make a horrible noise and spew smelly smoke...or something to that effect. And the Wal Mart mgr wasn't even around to get his slash and cuts on his person...what a shame...maybe he wouldn't be so store policy anti if he got sliced and diced. Some socialist would tell you to just run away and the robber will go away, yeah, he'll be back next time knowing the sheeple will roll over and play dead for him, and if they won't...he'll cut their guts out for garters. These store losers give me a pain. If I could legally have a CCW permit I would carry it into church...if they would let me in.

James

[C.R.Sam]

A very long read but worth every bit of time required.

I think that, as in the past, a VERY few will rise with the colours and use what they have to get what they need to fight for the rights protected by the Constitution. Most of those few will die as martyrs, hopefully after lighting the spark for more to follow until right prevails.

Interesting, a lad of only 50 complaining of age and bodily infirmities. He ain't seen nuttin yet. But if his mind and heart are right, he can be of use. Pack mules are necessary but they need somebody to pack em, lead em, feed em etc.

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Sam I am, grn egs n packin

Nikita Khrushchev predicted confidently in a speech in Bucharest, Rumania on June 19, 1962 that: " The United States will eventually fly the Communist Red Flag...the American people will hoist it themselves."

[Christopher II]

That essay put me into a 24-hour pathological depression. I'm only now just climbing out.

I don't want to have to see my country turn into another Northern Ireland.

Later,
Chris



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"TV what do I see, tell me who to believe, what's the use of autonomy when a button does it all??" - Incubus, Idiot Box

[beemerb]

If it happens I think my life expensy(sp) will be measured in hrs or days.Bad heart and back .But I can do as my signiture says,be very decietful and do some damage before I die.

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Age and deceit will overcome youth and speed.
I'm old and deceitful.

[TexasVet]

Excellent post! To respond to your answer from the Republicrat idiot, you should have pointed out that the founders saw nothing wrong with the private possession of field artillery pieces, siege guns, private Milita Companies or even state of the art Warships (even issued letters-of Marque) by civilians. Until 1934 a civilian could own any implement of war that he could afford.

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Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club
68-70