Posts Tagged → gun
Memorial Day Part II
The most nagging thought this week, which dampened my excitement or sense of purpose or meaning for this year’s Memorial Day, is the realization that the Biden Administration is running hard and fast to build a new US military. This new military is in the process of excluding (firing existing and not hiring new) conservative Christian Caucasians, patriots, and Constitutionalists. The reason this new military is being created is not to defend America, but to occupy and subjugate America. It is a military designed to protect the coup d’etat in Washington DC, to cement into place the stolen election of 2020, to bring the force necessary to hold on to illegitimate power.
This is terrifying stuff.
So in terms of observing this week’s Memorial Day, I was tormented all week by the idea that so many Americans have died to preserve our freedom, which we American citizens are now pissing away because we are literally letting people steal it from us. We are sitting here watching America be stolen and lawlessly overrun, and what are we doing about it?
You think the 2022 or 2024 elections will be free and fair? Not if the Democrat Party and their collaborator Republicans get their way with the so-called “Fair Voting Act”, which is simply designed to let the Democrat Party continue to cheat and steal elections forever. This means America will be a one-party nation, a one-party state, which is what all totalitarian nations have. And when the last vestige of freedom-loving Americans finally do rise up in revolt, the Biden Administration will demand the citizens turn in all of their guns, or face martial law.
And then martial law will be imposed, and the new anti-America, anti-Constitution military will be in place to enforce it. Instead of American military personnel of old who have been willing to die to give us freedom here at home, we will have a new type of military personnel who is willing to make us die in order to enable the Democrat Communist Party to hold on to control and power over us.
So yeah, this week’s Memorial Day took on a whole new context and meaning for me. America is in huge trouble.
Will the US Supreme Court go rogue in the Corlett decision?
The US Supreme Court says it will hear arguments in a major Second Amendment (gun rights) case brought by the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association (Corlett, docket number 20-843) against the State of New York.
These two opponents are now met in legal battle, and the US Supreme Court is the final battlefield upon which the outcome will be legally determined. Legal being a kind of tenuous word these days, as all kinds of government agencies have taxpayer-paid staff who now illegally behave any damned way they want, with no legal accountability. The illegal behavior of the “public servants” raises the question whether the official decisions the various government agencies are then issuing are actually legal, and whether or not citizens should give a fig about them.
The case facts (the policy question) of Corlett are right out of the Constitution’s Second Amendment: The right to keep and BEAR arms. New York State says no, citizens have no intrinsic or Constitutional right to carry concealed or unconcealed firearms outside of their homes, without the state’s approval. And thus has New York State made getting a concealed carry license very difficult, and the penalties for law-abiding citizens who do carry without a license extremely harsh.
As you might guess, the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association believes the opposite. They contend the plain meaning of the Second Amendment means what it says: To bear arms is to carry them in public, while the keep arms part is about having guns in your home. No license or government approval beyond what the Second Amendment says is necessary to keep or bear firearms, nor is government interference in such an individual Constitutional right lawful.
Moreover, they point out that the public policy question is on their side, because concealed carry permit holders are overwhelmingly law-abiding and safe. It does stand to reason that the people who go through the government red tape rigmarole presently needed to get a carry license are people who innately believe in following the law, in contrast to gang members and other urban scourges who carry and use guns illegally as part and parcel of their daily living. Therefore, New York’s stated purpose of limiting carry licenses for public safety and crime reduction is not only meaningless, because the current policy fails on both counts, it is actually having the opposite result. States with liberal concealed carry laws have seen a greatly reduced amount of violent crime, because would-be criminals understand they may encounter deadly force in response to their criminal behavior.
Many gun owners are excited about this case, after so many years of the Court declining to hear appeals of lower court decisions that were completely contrary to the Heller and MacDonald holdings (which were both strongly in keeping with the plain language of the Second Amendment’s very broad guarantee of individual gun rights). Well, hold your horses, people. The US Supreme Court has declined all kinds of appeals of lower court infringements of not just 2A, but what are in essence complete overturns of Heller and MacDonald precedents. The Supreme Court majority has allowed these lawless lower court decisions to stand. When the Court declined to hear appeals of lower court decisions on gun rights that were contrary to established Supreme Court precedent, the Court was more or less agreeing with the lower courts. The result has been a slow chiseling away of Constitutional Second Amendment rights by political activists sitting on lower courts, a slow erosion of the Supreme Court’s standing among and relevance to the citizenry, and a very clear message to Constitutionalists from all the courts: Do not hold hope for the American court system to protect individual American civil rights.
America’s court system is just as politicized and dysfunctional as the rest of our federal government. This is due to the divergent natures of the two types of people inhabiting our courts: Leftist activists for whom the law means nothing but a randomly opportunistic pathway to implement socialism and tyranny, and moderates who cannot be troubled to make a stand on hardly anything at all. So the moderates get swept away by the anti-law socialists. The Supreme Court is subject to these same forces.
Think about how America is still in the aftermath of the Court declining to hear enormously important cases about how some state administrative agencies (Pennsylvania’s Department of State being one) had unilaterally and illegally changed their state election laws right before the 2020 election, bypassing their own state constitutions and laws. And yesterday the Court sided 6-3 with a criminal illegal alien who fought his deportation on the grounds that the US Government had failed to give him “sufficient notice.”
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.
If you are a convicted criminal illegal alien, the US Government and the citizen taxpayers empowering it owe you nothing but a swift kick in the ass on your way out of America.
To be blunt: Because the Supreme Court allowed the 2020 election to be stolen, and would not even hear the monumental legal and policy issues raised during the steal, why would any of us believe they will stand in the way of the government trying to steal our guns?
If any particular official government entity or group of individuals is responsible for the destruction of America’s rule of law, it is the Supreme Court. No wonder fewer and fewer Americans have confidence in or loyalty to this failed government entity.
So, if you are one of the people salivating over the prospect of the Court hereby upholding the Second Amendment rights of the citizen serf in Corlett, you are DREAMING. Do not raise your own or anyone else’s expectations about the Supreme Court now swooping in to set things right on the Second Amendment. If anything, we should be prepared for this lawless body packed with leftist activists and cowards, with just a couple of loyal patriots (the two Constitutionalists Thomas and Alito), to throw the Second Amendment overboard. If anything, we should be raising people’s preparation levels for defending our 2A rights by all means necessary. The US Supreme Court has gone rogue and no American should look to the compromised traitors in it to provide any relief to USA citizens.
So come what may, regardless of what will be the Supreme Court’s latest decision on the Second Amendment, New York State citizens may yet determine on their own what they believe their individual rights to be, and also what the limits are on government interference in the private lives and rights of citizens. After all, both government and these various courts were established to resolve differences in favor of citizen rights that are already very clearly spelled out in our founding documents, including in New York’s own constitution. All of America’s founding documents were written and established to limit government and to elevate the citizen over government, a situation now being reversed in a nationwide atmosphere of autocratic government totalitarianism. New York State being an Exhibit A. Which the Supreme Court may well reinforce in its Corlett decision.
New York citizens may choose to protect themselves as they see fit, perhaps with a concealed handgun minus the license part. Obviously this is presently at some risk to a person’s liberty, due to New York’s anti-Constitution state administration.
And this raises the bigger question here: Will enough Americans rise up and re-assert our collective ownership of this thing called government, which has gone totally rogue and turned against us, the citizen taxpayers? Unfortunately, blood is probably going to flow in answering this question. We freedom loving citizens are being attacked and damaged by anti-freedom people who want full control of everyone and every decision we make. Human history demonstrates that only brute force can determine who prevails in these kinds of contests.
UPDATE: Reading the Washington Post assessment of this case provides insight into the minds of tyrants. The Washington Post wonders aloud what will happen if the Court is “too broad” in its reading of what can only be plainly read as a very broad individual right to keep and bear firearms. As a mouthpiece for the radical Left, the Washington Post sends public messages from elected officials to everyone else, and so they wonder if a “too broad” interpretation of the Second Amendment will result in the Court being “overhauled” by the Democrat Party with an increase in the number of leftist activist justices sitting on the bench. You can’t make this stuff up, and they are proudly stating up front that if the Left does not get what it wants, which is official tyranny via the Supreme Court, then they will artificially install a new Supreme Court that will give them the policy outcome they want, democracy be damned. When people use democratic processes to achieve non-democratic results, you are dealing with pure evil. Well, what am I saying…these people stole the 2020 election in broad daylight, so what else should be expected? My advice: Gentlemen, prepare to defend yourselves!
UPDATE May 2nd, 2021: The Supreme Court discredits itself yet again. The Court has declined to hear one of the most salient lawsuits of our time, that brought by Laura Loomer, whose weighty complaint to the Court was that the Big Tech digital media are illegal monopolies who illegally discriminate against Americans, and thereby violate citizens’ First Amendment free speech rights. Loomer being the Exhibit A of the moment. And we all know an awful lot of “cancel culture” discrimination by Big Tech has been going on the past twelve months, affecting at least a third of the American citizenry, and you would think a reasonable Supreme Court would want to weigh in on this problem. But no, the Supreme Court continues to behave disgracefully and kick away the sniveling little wretches who keep showing up at the carriage door begging for some relief from their oppression.
This Court is daily diminishing its own usefulness and relevance to the American People, and the only answer why this is, is that the Court’s majority no longer sees themselves as part of the American republic or as guardians of the Constitution that holds the republic together.
If not us, We, The People, then who the hell is the Supreme Court working for? I think the Corlett case is going to demonstrate exactly who the Supreme Court is protecting and promoting these days: Tyrannical Big Government. I hope I am wrong, but looking at all these decisions the Court is making, including Loomer’s case, it is clear the US Supreme Court is AWOL.
Don’t you go and feel all alone if the Court’s anti-Constitution behavior leaves you thinking their decisions no longer have a binding effect on you. The Court is clearly now made of tyrants, and tyranny has no role or place on American soil, and they have no claim on the allegiance of the American citizen, much less our obedience.
Why violent, disease-ridden illegal aliens and jihadis are allowed in America
A rational person would wonder aloud why hundreds of thousands of covid-positive illegal border jumpers are allowed to simply walk right into America and collect American taxpayer money, while law-abiding, tax-paying, job-holding Americans must wear a mask under penalty of severe punishment.
A rational person would wonder aloud why violent illegal aliens and foreign-born jihadis, like this week’s Boulder, Colorado, mass shooter, Ahmad al-Aliwi Alisa, are allowed to walk freely amongst and constantly victimize law-abiding, tax-paying, job-holding Americans, who themselves must follow every jot and tittle of the law under penalty of incredibly severe punishment and at risk of losing much of what they have worked hard to own.
And the answer why these injustices are allowed, and even forced on all of us, is the people leading a violent insurrection against America from within America need every crisis they can get their hands on. Each crisis, whether real or imagined, gives these manipulators the opportunity to advance their political and legislative agenda.
The covid lockdowns are against every aspect of a free and constitutional America and have shown ZERO medical effect.
The gun confiscation efforts now underway have zero to do with crime control. Colorado already has all of the supposed dream gun laws on the books, and yet this crazed jihadi Ahmad-blow-your-head-off-alla akhbar guy was able to buy a gun and then kill a whole bunch of defenseless Americans. Who were forced by the same crisis-jumping manipulators to be defenseless.
I will never forget the face of Rahm Emanuel, the former mayor of Chicago and a Clinton Administration bigshot, while describing the necessary authoritarian responses to the supposed risks of covid. Emanual got a wolfish smile on his face while describing the “opportunities” covid provides for political changes. He likes covid, because it is a crisis that gives him opportunity to advance his anti-America agenda. He is the same guy who twenty years ago said “Never let a crisis go to waste,” so that a political agenda can be advanced on its back.
People reading this blog are either in agreement with or amused by what is written here. There isn’t a damned thing I can write that will change the mind of a wannabe authoritarian, but I do hope that the Americans who want to remain free understand what is happening to our nation. America is not too big to fail, it is already being failed by design. Amid one crisis after another, an anti-America political agenda is being foisted on you and me as we sit here.
All of these bad people who are allowed to come into our country, take our taxpayer money that we worked hard to earn, while we ourselves are entitled to none of it until we turn 67, and who then commit violent crimes against us, are being used as pawns to undermine our own rights. By one political party.
Wake the hell up, America.
US Supreme Court “conservatives” abandon the American People
If you are a politico, then you watched and were amazed by the four decisions issued by the US Supreme Court this morning. If you are not a political animal, who devours everything political 24/7, then you should know that the Court is run by liberals. It is official now, in case anyone was wondering. The liberals have the majority, and so-called conservatives like Roberts and Gorsuch are no-such. They are RINOs.
Perhaps the most vexing of the Court’s decisions today was its unwillingness to pick up any of the ten gun lawsuits that have worked their way through the courts all over the country. The Court simply did not have four justices who wanted to hear any of the gun cases. Nearly all of the gun cases involve state and local laws that contradict the plain meaning of the 2nd Amendment, or lower court decisions that contradict the Court’s Heller decision. It is this second group of lawsuits and decisions that is most alarming, because every liberal lower court judge is now an open activist, issuing judicial decisions that directly conflict with Heller, rendering Heller ineffective.
If the US Supreme Court will not intervene to set lower courts straight on Supreme Court precedent, then its own decisions mean absolutely nothing. A court’s holdings are only as good as people’s willingness to abide by them. And the conundrum that law-abiding citizens face here is that we follow the law; we follow the Court’s holdings. If we lose, we shrug our shoulders and keep marching forward; win some, lose some.
Liberals behave totally differently. They never lose!
If they don’t agree with it, they simply ignore the Court’s holdings at every level of government and at every level of court. Liberal judges have become such aggressive activists that they issue decisions they claim apply nationwide, when in fact their own jurisdiction only covers one state. Liberal judges and liberal bureaucrats keep pushing their own agenda, the law be damned, court decisions be damned.
What happens to a society where some of the people follow the law and the other people don’t follow the law, but instead use it to both simultaneously suppress and oppress their political opponents, and never apply it to themselves?
Is this situation sustainable? Can any nation that is constituted like America have a permanent imbalance wherein one side repeatedly gets away with political murder, and the other side can’t even make the smallest mistake without having their lives, careers, and families destroyed? Well, the easy and correct answer to this question is No, no nation can carry this operation for long. Not even America. We are not too big, nor too rich, nor too powerful to fail. What is happening now with the US Supreme Court’s decisions is a guaranteed hard-wire of FAILURE into the nation.
Oh, and in case you didn’t know it, the Court majority also engaged in tons of legislating from the bench, on gay and transgender issues that the larger society is wrestling with through the political process. The Court majority, including a bunch of “Republicans,” just threw America’s constitutional and legislative process out the window and issued their own updated policy versions of “Roe v. Wade.”
Which brings me to the end of this sorry tale. So many people wondered aloud why I ever ran for office. They could see that my heart was in it, but that I really did not feel like making it into a career. I ran for the policy issues, for the jolt I could help give to the public. I feel even more strongly now, after this morning’s Court decisions, that America is in serious trouble.
It is not enough for people to vote. Yes, you must vote in November. But you are also needed as a volunteer for President Trump’s campaign, as a campaign volunteer for good local and state candidates. You yourself should run for office. Run against an entrenched politician, especially the RINOs that plague us unto death, like justices Roberts and Gorsuch do on the Court.
From tonight until November, every day counts. Lend a hand to the Trump campaign. Put up signs, distribute literature door-to-door, make phone calls. Etc. Every thing you do helps bring America one step back from the edge it now teeters on. Do not expect “other people” to take care of these problems. Both political parties have abandoned the American people, and now so have the supposed conservatives on the US Supreme Court.
We, the People, are all that we have left. Just us, ourselves. Either we fix this problem ourselves, or America is destined for real problems. Unimaginable problems. Don’t let that happen.
No cop, no gun
For decades liberals have been working overtime to disarm the American people. Every conceivable argument, legal maneuver, public stunt, lie, deception, logic pretzel, you name it, anti gun activists have done everything possible to remove even the most rustic, rudimentary firearms from private hands.
Now we have a movement to outlaw the police. Yes, to defund your local police department. No more police. No more law enforcement. The Only Black Lives Matter imperialist racial group has taken liberals into true Anarchy Land with the idea that there just should be no police, no law enforcement.
So, what does a society get when we have no guns at home so we can protect ourselves from bad people, and there is no one to protect us from law breakers?
Why, we get victims, lots and lots of victims! Wahoo!
This defund-the-police thing sure sounds like a purposeful recipe for disaster, or at least for ending civilization as we know it. The people pushing it have to know this. Why, you could almost swear people were trying to turn America into a land of petty tribalism and constant violence, certainly not the same successful nation we have been for a really long time. Now why would that be? Is it some secret goal to make everyone equally unhappy, in the name of a bizarre notion of equality?
Just adding up the No Cops plus No Guns gives us a result of two Hell Nos. Factor in the reverse-racist drumbeat, the demand for widespread inequality, the aim for ending capitalism, and hey, whaddya know, you got yourself the makings of another Rwanda, massacres and all. Sure seems like a good return on all that recent effort expended burning stuff down.
So sure, nice working Democrat People, go and thoughtlessly vote again for that wonderful family ending, career-ending, business-ending, nation-ending liberal candidate you always supported before. Keep mindlessly voting Democrat and before you know it, you will have no one protecting you and no way to protect yourself, endless crime in the name of “it’s our culture,” and then you will know that the long-promised liberal Utopia has arrived.
Sounds like fun! See ya, have a nice trip to CHAZ!
But those of us who choose to keep our guns and to willingly pay local taxes to pay for law enforcement will continue to enjoy our stable, happy lives; we will not be on your boat to Hell. Don’t be jealous of us, you have Utopia.
How do we handle daily revolution and destruction?
If you are wondering what on earth is happening in America and around the free world, you are in good company. It seems that a violent insurrection against Western Civilization is under way. We went from having the best economy in decades to sudden Wuhan Flu authoritarian lockdowns, shutdowns, and police showdowns with Mom and her children playing in a park, all clearly designed to flatten Donald Trump and nothing else.
When the politically partisan Wuhan Flu thingy lost steam because Americans could see for themselves that the dire predictions meant nothing for people living outside of New York, New Jersey, and nursing homes nationwide, a new social rally was created: George Floyd.
George Floyd was murdered. Yes, he was high on dangerous drugs at the time of his death, and yes he had a long list of legal offenses. But…like Ahmaud Arbery earlier this year, Floyd did not deserve to die just because someone thought his life was worth less. Definitely worth protesting their deaths and the bad policing that gave carte blanc to their murderers (years ago I wrote on this blog about the bad policing culture that was developing then and which, years later, is definitely front and center now; blacks, whites, Asians, all skin colors suffer from this bad policing culture).
But how do we logically go from protesting a few bad police officers and the Fallujah mentality that is creating them, to now eliminating the police? To destroying statues that are important representations of our civilization’s historic struggles and achievements? To racist lectures on Fakebook about how all “white” people are by definition racist and privileged and other insane BS?
No the world has not gone mad, although all of these things are certainly crazy. What happened is that the Left has been at war with YOU, and me, and all other normal job-holding, tax-paying, law-abiding citizens who make up our neighbors, and we either didn’t know it, didn’t care about it, or decided to plain ignore it. The people who confuse me the most are the registered Democrats I know and socialize with. Is this violent sedition what they are really about? Like, when they come home from church on Sunday, do they sit down and plan out the coming week’s riots and looting with their kids? I don’t think so, but they mysteriously remain loyal to the Democrat Party brand.
Whether you like it or not, you are now living in an actual war zone. It covers most of America. And it isn’t just in the down towns; it can extend to your job, to your home, to your children. Nobody is spared any space to just live in peace. The war is coming right to you not just in looting and arson, but in demands that you literally kowtow to the Left, show your obeisance. Even impoverished rural whites who haven’t seen a day of “privilege” since their ancestors fled religious prosecution and famine in Europe 300 years ago are now said to be evil and racist and privileged, simply because of their skin color.
Talk about racist! That “white privilege” phrase is probably the most racist and politically privileged thing I have ever heard in my life.
So how do you and I live in this new state of constant warfare, this so-called cultural revolution?
Simple answer: Buy guns and enough ammunition for them to be able to defend yourself, your home, and to band together with your neighbors to offer a combined defense. Do not allow yourself to be picked off singly and individually. Prepare to defend yourself, your home, your neighborhood, your nation. Have a plan, be prepared to implement it. And vote, donate money, and volunteer for good political candidates, so that hopefully the revolution being forced upon us doesn’t become an all-out shooting war.
You are under attack and you had better get ready to repel it, or you will lose everything you have, including your freedom. Most especially your freedom. One word, one thought, one day in church at a time.
Holocaust Remembrance & Israel
Last week had Holocaust Memorial Day, dedicated to remembering the millions of innocent civilians axe murdered by the Nazis from 1933 to 1945. Jewish communities especially make a big deal about this, and all across America they read names of the victims for like 24 hours. A way of memorializing and not forgetting. Fine, easy to understand.
This week it is Israel’s Remembrance Day, to recall those who died fighting for Jewish autonomy and survival, from 1945 until today. In a tiny country that is smaller than New Jersey, this is a big deal. Every person who dies while fighting for survival is a big deal. Easy to understand.
Here is what is so hard to understand: All the (mostly liberal) Jews who spend all year long talking about the Holocaust as if it is a new religion, and who pour tremendous energy into Holocaust Remembrance Day like it is the holiest day of the year, are absolutely opposed to self defense, gun ownership, and self-reliance. It is as if they have no idea what is happening in Israel just a week later, because if they did understand it, they would have learned this simple lesson:
If you don’t like being a victim, and if you want to prevent things like cattle cars and Zyklon B gassing from happening to you or your descendants, then get a gun, get a pile of ammunition, and learn to use them together. Be self-reliant and coordinate your life with other Americans who feel the same way.
You could call it a civilian militia of sorts, which is all-American. Or call it the modern version of the Hebrew Aid Society. Whatever you call it, it will provide a decent immediate defense in tough times, and a reasonably good way to beat a tactical retreat so that you, your family, your friends can get some place safer and more defensible. So that you can survive.
If survival is what you really want….
Coloring in between the NRA lines
Last year the NRA experienced staff and leadership upheaval at its national office in Virginia. Internecine palace intrigue and open warfare cleared out some good patriots and some dedicated, accomplished professionals from NRA staff and leadership roles. Lots of hard feelings permeated the entire organization. Most of it appeared like a petty high school dispute, and asking people who are much more in-the-know about why things worked out the way they did only elicited vehement responses. I was angrily scolded for even asking.
We are not supposed to question why or what!
And that kind of emotion-heavy, non-intellectual response was enough for me to conclude that whatever had happened was a bunch of BS, shallow, power-tussle stuff. The kind of behavior that professional adults should be above, especially with so much on the line for everyone else who loves freedom and liberty.
This is not the first time the NRA has undergone civil war, nor have most other non-profit organizations avoided internal bloodshed for that matter. A supposedly lily-white non-profit I worked for many years ago saw incredible professional bloodshed as a power struggle unfolded. Lots of innocent people there had their careers demolished or severely sidetracked, as they became collateral damage. But the NRA has much more on the line, and we cannot afford these kinds of unforced errors. Power should always be shared, not hoarded; long-long-long time staff should maybe think about passing the torch to younger people; and disputes should be held behind closed doors. We gun owners have enough enemies in the media and the entire Democrat Party to take up all of our time; we don’t need, nor can we afford this kind of infighting.
What exactly happened at NRA HQ will probably never become public information, but the bottom line is that EVP Wayne LaPierre was outed for spending $30,000 of NRA member money a year on expensive suits, NRA president Ollie North tried to play hardball about it and then literally gave up and walked off the field when things didn’t immediately go his way. Collateral damage extended to Chris Cox, the effective longtime NRA/ILA director, who was publicly forced to resign. Over a meaningless text message into which only the most paranoid person could read evil intent. Was like watching Caligula or Herod off their own children to retain complete power.
My impression (impression, not direct knowledge) is that LaPierre brooks absolutely no questioning of his absolute authority and dominance of the organization. And that he will utterly crush anyone who dares to challenge him, even in private, even on small matters. I leave it to you to determine if this is a healthy management style. Or not.
At least that is the way that LaPierre’s illuminating lawsuit against North, Cox, and some others reads. Like a political manifesto, not a legal document. And don’t misunderstand me, I do appreciate Wayne’s long service to the Constitution and the American people.
Out of all this shake-up we (I am a proud NRA Life Member and always will be) got another NRA/ILA executive director. With Chris Cox gone and now operating his own lobbying outfit in DC, the hunt was on for a new face of NRA’s political activism. Out of all of the atomic energy emitted from the great shakeup, nothing really changed. We, the NRA, could have gotten a whole host of people in that position – women, Asians, Blacks, Jews, American Indians, because there are a large number of articulate, intelligent, knowledgeable, experienced, good looking, charismatic pro-Second Amendment activists from each of those groups who could have easily moved into the NRA/ILA position and immediately started moving the ball down the field.
No, I am not into “diversity.” I am into maximizing effectiveness and expanding the NRA’s appeal.
Having some different public faces at NRA would not hurt our beloved organization, and in fact those kinds of small changes would help it a great deal. Think of how a non-Caucasian face might help sell the Second Amendment to non-Caucasian people (and yes, I know this may be a surprise to some, but there are actually a lot of non-Caucasian people legally living in America). It’s a thought, maybe a radical one, but I am sticking to it. Out of love for the Second Amendment, and the NRA; and for America.
Instead of getting someone totally new and different in the NRA/ILA position, we got yet another cookie cutter Caucasian guy, Jason Ouimet. He looks like Chris Cox’s twin, and like Cox, Jason also seems like a very nice man. He is articulate, knowledgeable, and he is not shy (“step on the throat of your opponent”). These are admirable traits. But Ouimet is just another Caucasian guy out of a bazillion Caucasian guys walking the halls of Congress, wearing charcoal suits, and appearing in gunfomercials. NRA needs a little change in this area. We do, we really do.
This time, while we may have missed an opportunity to hire someone different than the usual at the NRA/ILA, and therefore to better promote and market our beloved NRA, I suggest that in the future we, the NRA, consider adding one or two of the following individuals to the NRA public face and payroll. Let’s start grooming them for it now, so their move into that very public role is seamless.
Candidate Number One: Colion Noir (born Collins Idehen, Jr.). Colion is an attorney, he is knowledgeable about all kinds of guns, he is charismatic, funny, chatty, personable, physically fit, articulate, a very good shot, relatable, and unafraid of debate. He is experienced in TV and press. And Colion is cool, like most black people are cool. Cool black people inspire 93.7% of America’s Caucasian and Asian and Hispanic youth to want to be just as cool, just as hip, so there is something to it. Try some of it, you might like it, stiff Caucasian people.
Candidate Number Two: Col. Allen West. Allen is a well-known political quantity , with a long history of bucking the political and US Army establishment for all the right red-blooded patriotic reasons. Allen West has served with distinction in Congress and the US Army, and he has been a tireless and outspoken fighter for civil rights and good governance. He is articulate, charming, plain spoken, experienced, conservative, independent-minded, a strong leader, and a very good speaker. He would be a perfect NRA/ILA executive director.
And that is what I have to say about that.
Great American Outdoor Show Day Six – Fired Up Trump Supporters
Having worked as a volunteer at two different booths and at a separate nearby event at the Great American Outdoor Show here in Harrisburg this week, there is one big takeaway: Attendees are overwhelmingly passionate about President Donald Trump and seeing him be re-elected.
At first the constant parade of Trump 2020 hats going past my eyes did not hit home. Ya know, it’s the biggest outdoor show and gathering in the world, and outdoors folk are naturally conservative, so why not expect to see them…is what I unconsciously thought.
And then as the first day ticked through the first hours, my mind began to start its own “clicker” count of Trump and Trump-Pence hats going by. And mind you, this particular booth is in the Fishing Hall, and a lot of GAOS visitors are there for the hunting guides, the demonstrations, and the opportunity to handle and try out lots and lots of firearms. So this spot I was in is hardly representative of the overall visitor population.
And the mental “clicks” immediately surpassed my ability to keep counting. Somewhere around 150 my mind said that it had had enough of trying to keep track of Trump hats while also greeting visitors and engaging with them on issues of wildlife policy and politics and raffle tickets for guns. So if I saw 150 Trump hats on heads in about 30 minutes, and the rest of the day was just as filled with them, then about 2,600 went by in the day in that particular location.
Another stint at another GAOS booth on another day reinforced the same observation, except I have to admit up front that it was the Trump Campaign booth I was volunteering in. And of course the visitors here naturally self-selected for visits, and about fifty percent had Trump hats. Even those visitors to the Trump Campaign booth who did not have Trump hats were just as FIRED UP as the hat wearers, however.
The Trump Campaign booth was a non-stop feeding frenzy of activity. If you sat down to take a breather, you had to get right back up again to help someone fill out a form. And at any given time there were half a dozen of us working that booth. We were constantly busy.
I know, I know, the GAOS naturally attracts exactly the kind of people who are going to support president Trump anyhow – outdoorsmen, gun owners, pickup truck drivers, etc. But, having attended and volunteered at this show in both of its forms for many years (I started the 2012 vendor boycott that ended the prior Reed Expositions representation of the show, and which eventually resulted in the NRA taking over) I have never before seen anywhere near this level of politicized, politically aware, FIRED UP attendees.
In fact, in years past, it was rare if you got into any kind of political discussion with attendees beyond wildlife policies. Even Second Amendment rights were largely passe to the vast majority of past attendees, who seemed to just want to look at new RVs, camping gear, duck calls, and hunting rifles without being hassled about politics. Politics was off everyone’s radar in the past.
So if this politicized crowd with its nonstop stream of Trump hats is any indication, Trump’s voter base is both larger than in 2016, and a lot more passionate and politically involved. In fact, all of the people I registered to vote or spoke with felt personally invested in the outcome of this November’s election.
And personally dedicated to Donald J. Trump’s re-election.
This bodes very well for President Trump’s re-election prospects.
So God bless flyover country and the NRA.
Support the organizations who support you: FOAC
One of the few curses of serving boards of various non-profit organizations is watching financial support and personal affiliation drop over time, primarily among the younger generations. No matter how much good works these nonprofit groups do, it is a fact that public (private) support and participation is decreasing across America, especially among young people. Groups as diverse as churches, shooting clubs, non profit land trusts and related conservation groups, the Elks, the Shriners, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, etc. are all hurting for income that they used to take for granted from appreciative citizens.
So why does support for outstanding organizations who do so much for us and our own interests continue to drop?
Right now there are two primary reasons that are the same across America, regardless of the type of non profit organization. Everyone volunteering for or staffing non-profits are seeing the same thing. First, older people are are getting older, and with age comes restricted income. With restricted income comes less margin and fewer Dollars for donations, a pretty straight forward reason. Related to this is that as older people age, they eventually die off, and America is seeing the very end of The Greatest Generation that created the America we enjoy today, as well as their children, the heirs to their solid values and sense of community and patriotism.
Second, and the biggest reason, is the younger generations take everything for granted. Literally everything they enjoy – roads, schools, bridges, libraries, churches, shooting clubs, etc. seems to have dropped from the clear blue sky for their sole enjoyment. What they do not understand is how much hard work and sacrifice was done by generations before them, to get us to this rich present. If they have a cool beanie hat, an iPhone, and a ten dollar coffee, these younger Americans are perfectly happy to let the world keep turning and to let someone else make it turn for them.
Hard work does not run in their veins.
Apparently social media is the answer to everything with the younger crowd; despite their ethereal quality, those binary digital photons are just getting everything done right and left, like life is a big MineCraft game. Grown ups know this is not a fact.
Younger Americans are not donating to or volunteering for non-profit groups, no matter how important those groups and facilities are to their happiness. Simple and very sad fact. And at some point, after the various organizations go belly up and go out of business, the younger people will ask “Hey, do you remember that friends of Apple Pie Park group? You know, the people who put in the gravel walkway into the park? Where are they, because that park walkway is all mud now and someone needs to fix it.”
One group that means a lot to me as a gun owner, that gets a lot done for all gun owners, including YOU, is Firearm Owners Against Crime, FOAC, a perfectly named group out of western Pennsylvania run by tireless activist Kim Stolfer, in partnership with tireless attorney Josh Prince out of eastern Pennsylvania. Under Josh’s hard work, FOAC recently won a big precedent before the Commonwealth Court, where years of bizarre precedent had required citizens to go out and break the law before gaining legal standing to challenge that law. Until Josh Prince persuaded them otherwise, the court had actually been requiring people to become criminals to challenge unfair laws!
No longer.
This court decision is especially important to younger gun owners who seem to incorrectly believe that firearms ownership is out of reach of anti-gun prohibitionist crusaders. Like the local park friends group that paves the walkway so elderly visitors and parents pushing strollers can access that park, FOAC is out there battling for you, me, US, so that we can enjoy our Constitutional rights without infringement.
Like so many other non-profit organizations, FOAC deserves our support. They cannot work for us without our support of their work.
(and yes, I am the Harrisburg City plaintiff in FOAC’s lawsuit)