Here’s a Newtown Parent Who Probably Did Not Get a Ride On Air Force One

While the focus has been on Newtown families who are being used as props by unscrupulous politicians exploiting the Sandy Hook massacre, no one is talking about these courageous folks, who are standing up for Americans’ Second Amendment rights.

They are tired of politicians using the tragedy in their town to promote their political agenda.

They are tired of innocent people being punished for the actions of lunatics and criminals.

They are speaking out, letting you know that not all Newtown families are willing to be used to further the tyrannical agenda of the gun banners.

 

Soldiers defend rights while statist prosecutor destroys them

A few weeks ago, an acquaintance of mine was stopped by police in Temple, Texas, close to Ft. Hood, and arrested him for carrying an unconcealed rifle slung over his shoulder. Texas is a right-to-carry state, and law-abiding gun permit owners can carry rifles and hunting weapons openly, so long as the weapons are not being carried in a threatening way. According to CJ Grisham, he was out hiking with his son. I can’t imagine anyone would find this threatening, but apparently the police did. They confiscated his property and arrested him, coincidentally, after CJ apparently rattled some cages by publicly demanding that local officials do their job and uphold the Second Amendment rights of citizens.

CJ’s son got some video of the encounter, in which the Temple police tell him his only crime was alarming some hoplophobes in the area by “threateningly” carrying a rifle slung over his shoulder.

“In this day and age, [people] are alarmed when they see someone with what you have,” one of the officers tells Grisham in the video. “They don’t care what the law is.”

“When you alarm people, and they call us,” one of the officers in the video begins to say, after Grisham asks why the officiers failed to ask for his concealed-carry permit.

“And did you explain to them what the law is, sir?” Grisham asks.

“They don’t care what the law is,” the officer replies. Graham then shoots back, “Do you care what the law is?”

“In this day and age, they’re alarmed when they see somebody with what you have,” the officer replies.

“Just because a guy has got a firearm, he’s dangerous?” Grisham asks, drawing the reply, “Yes, sir.”

One of the officers tells Grisham he was “rudely displaying” the rifle.

Got that? People don’t care about the law, and exercising this law is rude and will be punished. This is what the Temple Police department apparently think.

Not only that, but according to this story, these authoritarian fucksacks somehow acted to protect themselves. That’s right. A guy is walking along with his son, with his rifle slung over his shoulder is apparently a threat.

That’s the way they apparently work over there, according to some Soldiers.

The conflict between law enforcement and armed military personnel in the community around Fort Hood, one of America’s largest military bases, has recently and repeatedly involved the issue of gun control — and the tension has been exacerbated in part by an Obama-supporting prosecutor described as a “bandleader” of anti-gun efforts in the heavily conservative community.

And it certainly sounds like CJ Grisham got caught in this particular crossfire – an overzealous, gun-grabbing, Obama supporting prosecutor versus a community of military members who not only treasure their rights, but fight to protect them.

Let’s hope the Constitution, our rights and our freedoms win in this case. CJ’s fundraising page is here. He’s fighting for all our rights.

 

This is why the GOP is no longer a viable option

They cave. They compromise our rights away. They don’t give a fuck about facts. All they want is re-election.

I’ve come to expect this from Democrats, but there’s got to be a party of principle somewhere – and it sure ain’t the Republican party!

The latest betrayal comes from Pat Toomey, who I believed to have been a solid conservative until he decided to crawl into bed with the gun banning Democrats.

Senate Democrats’ efforts to tighten gun regulations are receiving late help from an unexpected figure: Sen. Pat Toomey, a conservative Republican from Pennsylvania.

Backed by tea-party groups when he arrived in the Senate two years ago, Mr. Toomey has until now focused largely on fiscal issues. But last week he began discussions with Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) about expanding background checks on gun purchases, just as Democrats’ negotiations with another Republican lawmaker appeared to fizzle.

This idiocy is once again straight out of the playbook of Dear Leader, who spewed bullshit on my airways yesterday, claiming that if you don’t support expanding background checks to essentially eliminate private sales, you must want more children to die a la Sandy Hook, ignoring, of course, the very inconvenient fact that no background check in the world would have stopped Adam Lanza, who stole the firearms from his mother.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) had been working with Mr. Manchin on a bipartisan deal broadening background checks to nearly all firearm purchases. But Mr. Coburn has split with Democrats over whether to require unlicensed sellers to keep a paper record verifying that a background check had been conducted before making a sale.

A background check on all firearm purchases (something that is required from an FFL sale already) would involve FFLs in every transaction – private or otherwise – essentially eliminating the right of private individuals to sell their property without government interference, and costing FFLs resources that are already strained in these economic times, which will, of course, be passed onto the consumer who is already paying extra taxes in many states, extra bureaucratic fees in many states, etc. etc. etc.

But hey! Why would the GOP care? If this paints them as caring and progressive about the deaths of children, and allows them another term in office, who gives a flying fuck about the Constitution and about people’s rights?

While both GOP lawmakers have an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, Mr. Toomey could have an easier time hashing out a deal with Mr. Manchin. In Pennsylvania, 94% of residents support requiring background checks for all gun sales, according to a Franklin & Marshall College Poll this year.

Yeah, an “A” rating from the NRA doesn’t mean a whole lot to me. May I remind you of an article I wrote in 2003?

But my disappointment and disenchantment with the National Rifle Association doesn’t end there. They have repeatedly sold out gun owners by supporting petty tyrants in three-piece suits, who consistently take steps to infringe on our freedoms. In California, the NRA awarded Assemblyman Rod Wright its “Defender of Freedom” Award. This is the same Rod Wright who supported unconstitutional limits on firearms purchases and background checks. This is the same Rod Wright who authored a bill to increase licensing fees from $3 to up to $100. Never mind the absurdity of bilking peaceable citizens of hundreds of dollars for making a constitutionally protected purchase. This champion of “freedom” apparently thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to license and charge Americans for exercising their rights. The NRA’s “Defender of Freedom” in 2001 voted against gun owners 62 percent of the time, according to Gun Owners of California.

During the last election cycle the NRA and anti-gun Maine Citizens Against Handgun Violence actually supported some of the same candidates! According to the Kennebec Journal, Deborah Danuski, a Democrat from Lisbon, was endorsed by the anti-handgun group, while also receiving an “A-” from the NRA on its report card of candidates. As a matter of fact, in Maine, both the NRA and Maine Citizens Against Handgun Violence supported 18 of the same candidates!

Meanwhile, in Colorado, where the NRA supported Senator Wayne Allard for office, and even boosted his pro-gun lobby contributions to $37,000 since 1990, Allard stated flatly that he would support federal legislation requiring gun registration for private gun sales at gun shows. Is a legislator who wants to expand gun registration someone who stands up for the rights of gun owners?

The latest travesty comes from Virginia, where the NRA Political Victory Fund touted the pro-gun “accomplishments” of Delegate Jack Rollison. This is the same Rollison who in a press release had the unmitigated gall to paint Gun Owners of America and the Virginia Citizens Defense League, who have endorsed his opponent Jeff Frederick, as extremists and “milita-esque”[sic] organizations. This is the same Jack Rollison who wants to ban your right to self-defense in any restaurant that happens to sell liquor. And this is the same Jack Rollison who voted correctly on only two out of eight issues important to Virginia gun owners. And by the way, according to KeepAndBearArms.com, Frederick is actually an NRA member, while Rollison is not. But I have no doubt Rollison will run right out and join real quick just to correct that little error.

This holds true even today. I know Jeff Frederick personally. He’s singularly devoted to protecting our rights and our Constitution, but because of his tendency to buck the establishment, he’s reviled even today by some GOP members, and despite the NRA’s massive screwing, Jeff won the GOP nomination that year.

Messrs. Toomey and Manchin are working on expanding background checks to unlicensed sellers at gun shows and online, but not to other private sales, according to someone familiar with the negotiations. Currently, only federally licensed dealers must perform background checks and maintain a record of the sale. Mr. Toomey’s office didn’t return a request for comment.

May we remind Messrs. Toomen and Manchin that fewer than 2 percent of criminals, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics research, buy their guns at gun shows and flea markets? If gun shows and flea markets are such supermarkets for criminals, one would have thought that the number of purchases of firearms used in crimes would be much higher from these venues.

But again, it doesn’t seem to matter. What matters is the appearance that they’re doing something, even if that something has no chance of preventing violence.

Mr. Manchin had been working with Sens. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) to expand the background-check requirement to include most sales by people who aren’t licensed dealers.

The bolded text should tell you everything you need to know. You already know that Schumer is a gun-banning, traitorous, hypocritical satchel of malodorous slime. What you may NOT know is that Kirk is just about as odious, despite the “R” behind his name, and I won’t even go into the embellishments about his military record!

In other words, teaming up with the above two monkeys does nothing to bolster Manchin’s credibility, especially Kirk, who has an “F-” rating from Gun Owners of America, which is only slightly worse than Manchin’s own “D” rating.

Mr. Toomey would face re-election in 2016, and his stance could especially prove popular in the suburbs of Philadelphia and in the Lehigh Valley north of the city, said G. Terry Madonna, the Franklin & Marshall poll’s director. “Those are the swing voters,” and they tend to support efforts to tighten gun regulation, he said.

And this tells us everything we need to know about Toomey’s motives. This is not a safety issue, since this legislation will most likely not have any effect on violence. It’s a reelection issue. And while I’m all about representing your constituents to the best of your ability, he took an oath to support and defend the Constitution, and this latest bullshit violates said oath, as far as I’m concerned.

If he signed on to a background-check bill, Mr. Coburn, a noted skeptic of federal powers and a longtime advocate for gun rights, would provide significant cover for Republicans and red-state Democrats to do the same. Still, Mr. Toomey’s conservative credentials on fiscal issues could help draw Republican support. He is a former president of the Club for Growth, an influential small-government group.

“His engagement would send a very strong signal to people who are wavering” that supporting expanded background checks would be, “if not a safe vote, then not as dangerous a vote as the conventional wisdom might hold,” said Kristin Goss, a professor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy.

Terrific, so this bunch of cowards will follow suit if just one traitor caves. Got it. Noted. And once again, I would point out that the focus is on “safe voting” – voting that will not cost these legisleeches their cushy jobs, instead of voting to protect the Constitution and the right it protects.

It isn’t yet clear which other Republicans might support a deal on background checks beyond Mr. Kirk, but Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) has said he is open to considering a bipartisan proposal, his spokesman said.

McCain? John McCain? The Republican contender for the White House that had his octogenarian ass handed to him by the current White House resident? THAT John McCain? The one I refused to support, because I knew he was nothing but an opportunistic, petty traitor to the Constitution with his “Maverick” act that imposed one of the most odious restrictions on the First Amendment right of Americans ever? Yeah… I’m so shocked!

Aren’t you glad you held your nose and voted for this douchebag, Republicans?

Well, I’m certainly glad there are a bunch of “wacko birds,” who are willing to stand up for the Constitution, including the usual defenders of our rights: Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Marco Rubio.

Still, even a bipartisan deal would face strong resistance from some Republicans. In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, 13 Republicans objected to moving forward with “any legislation that will serve as a vehicle for any additional gun restrictions.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) also would oppose bringing the bill to the floor, his spokesman said Monday.

And while Zero accuses these 13 Senators of grandstanding and using “political stunts,” he trots out Newtown families like inanimate props, even giving them a ride on Air Force One at taxpayer expense.

Who’s using political stunts for political gain? The Senators who want to uphold their oath to defend the Constitution, or the President who trots out families wracked with grief in order to push his political agenda?

So if this is the GOP of today, they will never get me back. They will never get back the millions of people they’ve lost with their Liberal Lite™ antics. And they will go the way of the Dodo, giving the Democrats carte blanche to destroy this country.

Just think about that.

You Don’t Know What Freedom is…

…because you never lost it.

This was the testimony of a Cuban immigrant in Salem, OR on Friday.

You can read the full transcript at the link above, but know and understand this is exactly what I’ve been trying to tell people for years.

It’s not that I think Americans are somehow stupid, or that they don’t understand these concepts. But when you’ve been raised with the opportunities this nation affords – when your idea of hardship is not getting that cool car you wanted for your 16th birthday – when you have had the right to speak freely, criticize your government, exercise your religion, and read what you want and when you want without fear that the government will come and arrest you, it’s tough for you to understand that tyranny is a real thing, and not just something you read about in books.

And I’m not trying to demean Americans, but unless you’ve lived it, you just don’t understand.

Manuel Martinez gets it. He’s lived in Cuba, where “malicious individuals, masquerading as Democrats… established … a dictatorial regime … in my nation called Communism, Socialism, Stalinism, Marxism, and whatever other named -ism you want to put on it.  The reason why it was done was to take away the guns from the People.”

The only reason to disarm the people is to make them defenseless against government abuses and unable to respond. I realized this when I was eight.

I know the exact day, and moment when my views on the Second Amendment were formed.

It was before I knew what the Constitution of the United States of America was.

It was before I knew about the Bill of Rights.

And it was before I’d ever touched a gun.

It was when a Soviet border guard stuck a rifle in my face and threatened to shoot me when I was eight years old.

I haven’t the slightest idea what kind of rifle it was. I don’t know if it was an AK, or an SKS, or any other letters resembling a spoonful of alphabet soup. At that time I couldn’t tell the difference between an M-60 and a Beretta 9mm pistol. But it was a rifle, and it was inches away from my face.

That was the exact moment I knew that the ability to defend yourself is tantamount to life itself.

The border guard was standing in front of a doorway through which they took my dad. My parents and I spent the day in this third-world pit on the border of Poland and Ukraine, waiting to leave the Soviet Union. And since we were Jews, who wanted more than anything to leave the motherland, the border officials, the guards and the so-called “customs officials” made it their official duty to make our lives as miserable as possible while we were there.

So, they rifled through our luggage, confiscating anything they deemed necessary – loosely translated it means they stole our stuff.

They did body searches – strip and orifice searches as well. Not because they really thought we were hiding something, but because they wanted to further humiliate the Jews. It made them feel powerful and strong. It made them feel more than what they actually were. It was the ultimate illusion.

Power.

They say power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And the final step to that absolute corruption is taking away a person’s means of self-defense.

It starts with games – mind games – the kind of games that leave you drained of dignity, self-worth and the will to live. It starts with humiliation, crescendos with vicious emotional lashing and culminates with complete surrender.

I sat quietly in a corner – a skinny eight-year-old kid. I was scared to death, so I sat in a chair and stared into my book of fairy tales as my parents stood in front of the customs officials and watched them rummage, tear and confiscate our meager belongings.

My parents looked tired and defeated. They were pale. They obviously hadn’t slept. They stood in front of the customs officials with their hands hanging limply at their sides, stooped and beaten.

We didn’t take much with us. Three suitcases and a small radio. I was in charge of carrying that. I didn’t want to give it up. It was my responsibility. And as one official watched me clutch at the radio’s plastic handle with my sweaty hands, he decided against taking it away from me. He told me to go sit in a corner instead.

So I sat. My mom came over later and gave me my book of fairy tales to read. I couldn’t concentrate, so I furtively watched my parents face the border officials.

When they were finally finished checking our baggage – when they felt they had stolen enough – they sloppily closed the suitcases, and escorted my father to another room.

And as I watched him go, I was racked by this overwhelming feeling of utter terror and helplessness. I wanted to go to him. At that moment I wanted my daddy more than anything in the world. So before my mother could stop me, I dropped my book and left my radio on my chair. I jumped up and began running toward my father, who’d disappeared into a dark hallway. At that point the only thing standing between me and my dad was a guard – a guard in an olive drab or grey uniform (I can’t even remember its exact color) and a rifle.

In the darkened hallway I saw my father turn and look at me as the guard pointed the rifle in my face. I saw another guard lead my father away. And I heard my mother scream, “Let this child go to her father! Now!”

Even in this darkest, most humiliating of places, she gathered her last vestiges of strength and dignity and faced that guard in my defense!

I reached out a hand past the guard and screamed, “Daddy!” But he was gone, and I felt myself being pulled back into my mother’s arms. I screamed louder, “Daddy!” and tried to run past the guard. And once again that rifle was in my face and my mother was crying and screaming.

My mother and I were eventually allowed to join my father. We sat in the train station, waiting for the next available train to take us away from that hellhole. My parents carefully folded what clothing we had left into the suitcase. I could see torn sheets, a few books and some old shoes also being lovingly packed away.

We traveled for another two months before we reached our final destination – America.

But I’ll never forget that day. I’ll never forget how helpless I felt – how demeaned and beaten my parents looked. And I’ll never forget that rifle in my face. At that point, someone had complete power over me and over those I loved. At that moment, we were helpless, disarmed and undefended.

Today, as I write this, I realize how crucial the ability to defend oneself truly is. It’s not about having to justify myself to anyone in power anytime I want to purchase a certain weapon. It’s not about being registered like a common criminal simply because I want to own a gun. It’s not even about being called a “gun nut” or an “NRA freak.”

It’s about the slow, systematic destruction of dignity and strength. It’s about the methodical erosion of our personal defenses. And all of the above are definitive symptoms of that erosion.

For once you’ve taken away a person’s self-respect – once you’ve taken away a person’s dignity – it becomes all the easier to take away his or her means of self-defense. And once that’s gone – that’s the precise moment you know you’ve been completely defeated.

 

I’m re-publishing this article in its entirety. It is linked above at KeepAndBearArms.com, and I wrote it in 2001.

It’s not about guns. It’s about control.

Remember that.

Mark Kelly tries to intimidate Republican Senators who actually have the guts to protect our rights

 

“Don’t stand in the way of MY process, Senators! All dangerous EVVVILLLLL ‘assault weapons’ must be banned! Well, except for mine.”

Yup… the same winner who’s been using his wife as a prop to try and abrogate our Second Amendment rights, even as he purchases the very same weapons he wants out of our hands (on an ‘impulse buy’… Sure, Mark.), doesn’t like that Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz and others are actually planning to stand in the way of his totalitarian agenda.

“They should listen to their constituents and certainly shouldn’t be getting in the way of the process, which is to debate the bill and to vote on the bill,” Kelly said.

“It doesn’t make any sense and I imagine that at some point, if they actually do this, their constituents will hold them accountable for those actions,” he added.

Listen to this guy. ‘Getting in the way of the process’? You’re right… how dare these men use the powers they have at hand to defend the Constitution from your emotionally-driven selfish whiny hypocrisy. This man deals in fear, shame, and lies. He has gone from a hero as an astronaut to appealing to the basest instincts of people, trying to whip us all into a herd mentality so we stampede to see who can surrender his rights the fastest so he can assuage his aching… whatever it is. I don’t have an ounce of respect for this honorless worm any longer. I hope gun rights activist and liberty lovers make his life personally uncomfortable by ratcheting up public pressure, and exposing and mocking his hypocrisy at every turn.

As to the Senators planning to filibuster any gun control bill in the Senate… Thank you, gentlemen. We have your back.