Category → Government Of the People…
Reflection on national versus local elections
My career started in Washington, DC, and included seven years there of national and international work. After returning home to Pennsylvania, my focus turned to the region and state.
Now, my focus increasingly stays on local elections. It’s where we get officials who support concealed carry, or not, and who have the most impact on individual citizens.
Career is a funny concept. For me, it has been about enjoying satisfaction where I find it.
Josh’s Response to an Anti-Gun Email
2/17/2013
12:14:10 PM
Hi Dave. Good morning. I’ve just finished making the kids their French toast, and eating some myself. Time available now to do adult stuff.
First off, thank you for writing to me. Political apathy is a bigger threat to our Republic than just about anything else. Being engaged is key. I’m so glad you are willing to take time to write to me.
Right now I’m not a candidate, although I do anticipate running again in a few years. But I’m involved politically, a lot, and I respond to all contacts I receive, including helping people access their government services, when they ask.
The Second Amendment has zero to do with hunting or target shooting. It is fundamentally about armed militias not under federal control, members of which own and bear their individually owned military grade firearms.
Yes, I recognize that this makes many Americans uncomfortable, especially those who choose not to exercise certain of their rights.
The beauty of our Constitution is that it stands strong against the whims of social graces, which change frequently along with moods and fashions. The Constitution is designed to hold together the country with an untearable fabric.
So, Dave, your opinion applies to choices you make in your life. It does not apply to those Americans who choose to exercise their full rights.
Americans do not need to explain their Constitutional choices or rights.
AR15s and high capacity clips are involved in a small fraction of crime. And they are critical to fulfilling the Second Amendment’s purpose. So we will keep them.
If the current federal government makes them “illegal,” tens of millions of Americans will dissent, resist, defy, and disobey. Any government that would make tens of millions of Americans criminals overnight by virtue of otherwise legal guns they’ve owned, is a government without our consent and exactly the reason why we need the Second Amendment. And AR15s.
Forty-five out of the fifty states have constitutional protections of military grade firearms equally strong, or stronger, than the Second Amendment. Thus, guns are and always have been a core part of America that lots of people are today uncomfortable with. I’m sorry that you are uncomfortable with them. Maybe I can take you shooting. It’s safe, fun. Let me know.
Prohibition didn’t work with alcohol. Book bans failed. Abortion advocates say that women will have abortions, whether they are legal, or not. The same facts hold with guns: no one is taking our guns. Prohibitionist laws will drive them underground, into the woods, etc, and will force a Constitutional crisis.
Already hundreds of sheriffs (and their deputies) across America have stated they will not enforce a gun ban, and they will arrest anyone trying to enforce it. That’s a Constitutional crisis right there, different official law enforcers pitted against one another. With guns.
While the local militias have been in disuse since the end of the Civil War, it appears that these Constitutionally mandated civilian forces are beginning to reassemble. I urge you to look into the early militias. They were community based, grass roots, and according to our founders, expressly for the purpose of counterbalancing a federal army.
To that end, and because the Army has M16s, we will keep our AR15s.
Because so many Americans are still self reliant and resistant to government involvement in their lives, tens of millions choose to rely on the Constitution as their source of civic life. Others, sadly, have become statists, where they elevate, venerate, and capitulate to the federal government. This was not the America founded in 1776. It’s not my America. It’s not a Constitutional America.
Those who want America to be something else probably should move to a place that better meets their needs.
Again, thank you for writing.
Stay in touch. And tell me if you want to go to the range.
Josh
Josh First
www.appalachianland.us
www.joshfirst.com
On Feb 17, 2013, at 3:06 AM, Dave / Deb
Dear candidate First
I am strongly anti assault weapons , huge ammo clips, and strongly for all background checks.
But I still recognize the right of citizens to own guns for hunting and self protection. I support the 2nd amendment.
Technology has created weapons far more deadly than any one will ever need outside of war.
Your arguments are faulty.
The NRA and the gun manufacturers are trying to sell as many guns as possible through fear tactics.
This will only result in more and more deaths- from anything from mass murders to domestic violence to simple accidents especially when children get ahold of guns.
I am dismayed that you are running for office in Dauphin County, Pa.
Please get Wayne LaPierre to campaign for you.
You will find out how the vast majority of sane people feel when you only get about 20% of the vote.
Sincerely,
Dave S.
So I am an illegal alien?
Apparently so, according to the US Department of Agriculture:
http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/jw-releases-confidential-usda-videos-revealing-cultural-sensitivity-training-program/
President’s Day Message
“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government”
— Thomas Jefferson, 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334
“The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference – they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good”
— George Washington
What the Militia Was in 1776
A very brief, historic review of what some American militias were in the 1770s, including their purposes and makeup:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323468604578251780957727750.html
Texas Oil & Gas Companies Gone Wild – Part 1
Imagine my disgust and fury when out with my son on our hunting camp the other day we discovered four fresh survey stakes with gobs of ribbons placed on our property. No one had permission to enter our heavily posted, heavily surveyed property that adjoins PA State Forest.
Yes, I had been in discussion with a Texas-based company to come and explore the property, but we had signed nothing and they were in the process of negotiating.
So, finding the four stakes, which marked planned drilling and blasting locations, strategically placed around the property, but far enough away from the cabin that we were less likely to find them, conjured up the worst stories we have heard and seen about rogue Texas oil companies that trample on private property rights.
Luckily, I wasn’t present when the “surveyors” trespassed on our property. Had I encountered them, I would have held them at gunpoint until the State Police arrived to cite them for trespass. And I can tell you from personal experience, confronting trespassers out in the woods is uncomfortable and potentially explosive. Unless the trespasser does everything the landowner legally demands, which is a lot, the potential for gun fire is extremely high. People who defiantly trespass are probably violent, too. So the landowner has to be aggressive and controlling, ready to defend himself at any second.
I contacted the company, and their representative told me that — no kidding — my boundary is wrong and he will be happy to have a surveyor come out and fix it.
I am not lying about this. He actually said that.
Our boundary with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has been surveyed by both my surveyors and the state’s surveyors, many times. It is clearly marked and has Posted No Trespassing signs along it, closely spaced so that no one can say they didn’t see them.
Interestingly, their stakes were conveniently placed so that they were least likely to be found. And whoever placed them had to walk past a bunch of big yellow Posted signs.
I am preparing the civil lawsuit and the criminal complaint as I write this, and hopefully the company will make good, so I don’t have to rub their thieving name in the dirt.
See, they stand to make a lot of money by finding out what is under my property, but they don’t want to work with me on it, so they tried to steal the information, instead.
And it is sad, because I love Texas.
School Safety TV Debate: Never Mind the Crazy Headline
Josh takes on gun prohibitionist CeaseFirePA and “Obama Cop” police chief Tom Hyers in this live broadcast TV debate from last week. Never mind the crazy anti-gun headline, dreamt up by some anti-Second Amendment activist…Cut and paste the link below:
http://video.witf.org/video/2335658815
Josh versus CeaseFirePA and Obama Cop
Josh versus CeaseFirePA and police chief Tom Hyers.
http://m.video.witf.org/video/2335658815/
Josh appearing on WITF tonight
Josh will be appearing as a guest on tonight’s live WITF Smart Talk TV program hosted by Nan McCormick Abom. On Channel 33-5 in the Harrisburg, the show runs from 8:00 pm to 9:00 pm and will take calls.
Will CeaseFirePA Join the Militia, Please?
“When the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually…. I ask, who are the militia. They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers. But I cannot say who will be the militia of the future day. If that paper on the table [the Constitution] gets no alteration, the militia of the future day may not consist of all classes, high and low, and rich and poor….”
–George Mason, Founder of America, 1788