Posts Tagged → gun
NRA? All the way!
The National Rifle Association has agreed to run the former Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show, now to be called the Great American Outdoor Show.
Dauphin County commissioner Jeff Haste led the effort to find a suitable vendor for the huge PA Farm Show complex. The ESOS has been worth anywhere from $45 million to $88 million annually to the local economy, and losing it was a huge impact on the region.
The fact that yours truly played the key role in blowing the whistle is both happy and sad. I’ve been blamed for ruining the show and praised for calling attention to the former promoter, Reed Exhibitions, and getting them knocked out. Alex Cameron, Jr., was the vendor who tipped me off.
My friend and custom knife maker/supplier is John Johnson, and he took a financial beating because the show wasn’t held. Now he has confidence that the 2014 show will be better than several of the prior ones put together, and he can plan accordingly.
The NRA has invited all five million of its members to visit the 2014 show, so you know it’s going to be crowded, fun, and full of exciting gear and trips. And you can be sure that modern sporting rifles will be present and accounted for, in force….
Thank you to Commissioner Haste, the Corbett Administration, and the NRA for getting the show re-established. And thank you to all of the patriotic Americans who decided to take a hit to stop the British – based Reed Exhibitions this past February.
See you all next February at the Great American Outdoor Show!
UPDATE: As if you haven’t already read this elsewhere, the US Senate voted down the unconstitutional ‘background check’ federal database gun confiscation bill proposed shamefully by senators Manchin (WV) and Toomey (PA). Let’s get these two buffoons out of office post-haste. You cannot be a US senator, attack the US Constitution this way, and then be taken seriously by those of us in favor of maximum freedom for citizens.
A day that will live in infamy? We will live through it
Seeing US Senator Pat Toomey cave in on gun control is a painful thing indeed. The man was elected to lead on tough issues and bring the Constitution to bear on policy and legislation. He is obviously failing on this most important count.
With his Democrat co-sponsored bill promoting universal background checks and hugely increased roles for doctors, and reportedly teachers, in unilaterally determining if a citizen is sufficiently mentally competent to enjoy their Constitutional freedoms, Toomey has entered a freak zone that no one could have imagined.
However, we have been here before. Last year it was US Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts who allowed ObamaCare to stand on the most bizarre reasoning possible. Recall that, like Toomey, Roberts was supposed to be a conservative.
If you go back far enough in other places, you’ll find similar hard left turns, like when Israel Prime Minister Menachem Begin gave up the Sinai Peninsula for a worthless scrap of paper from Egypt, or when Israel Prime Minster Yitzchak Rabin entered into the disastrous Oslo Accords, or when Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon unilaterally disengaged from the Gaza Strip, this time not for a worthless piece of paper, but for a never-ending rain of missiles.
FDR dropped the ball at the Yalta Conference, giving Stalin free rein to run amok, setting the stage for decades of nuclear stand-off that could have been averted had FDR been a strong man.
Such is the mindset of humans, that desire to be liked, to be thought well of. Especially when momentous events are upon them, so many in leadership roles are called upon to compromise as a sign of their maturity and clear thinking.
Yet, few but the strongest can resist this siren’s call. Lincoln comes to mind. Thus he earned the best monument on the National Mall. Principled all the way. Admiration from all corners.
Seeing Senator Pat Toomey’s face in the news associated with this big flop of a bill hurts. Hearing Toomey say that background checks and all of the government database that does with them isn’t gun control is like entering some weird, surreal deep-sleep dreaming phase.
And yet, Toomey has revealed himself as a mere mortal, not some great man who had the principles and the strength of character to stand tall when needed.
He is not a bad guy, but Toomey is a failure on this one count alone, and he is not the first nor the last. The Second Amendment is the greatest right of all the Constitutional rights granted to American citizens, and seeing it so badly eroded by one person who should know better is a painful reminder that we cannot stop working.
Yes, the Tea Party folks will probably primary Toomey, and he may well lose that race on the basis of this vote alone. And yes, that could possibly lead to a Democrat filling his seat, which I would not be happy about. But it will be a lesson to other Republicans: Stand with us, or quit calling yourself a Republican.
Josh to speak at Tea Party Patriots gathering
Josh will be speaking at the Tea Party Patriots gathering next Monday night at 6006 Old Jonestown Road, in Lower Paxton Township, at 7:00 PM. The venue is accessed through an entrance around the back of the old church, in an auditorium. Parking is right there. The subject will be the Second Amendment. Josh will be speaking with local attorney Marc Scaringi, who in 2012 ran in the Republican primary for US Senator from Pennsylvania while Josh was running for PA State Senate.
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
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
Patriot News Article on Eastern Outdoors Show Cancellation
“The British didn’t understand Americans in 1776, and they don’t understand us in 2013″…my favorite quote ever.
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/02/assault_weapons_tactical_ban_b.html
Why I am against “gun control” in a nutshell
I am against “gun control” because it has no correlation with crime control.
Police are not required to protect individual citizens from harm, but rather to provide for the general peace.
So now we have government officials who want to remove my ability to defend myself. But they will not provide for my defense, nor will they be accountable for either failing to protect me, or for eliminating my ability to protect myself.
This is the definition of failed government. It is all about control, and nothing about serving the citizens that give it legitimacy.
This is the situation in England, where law-abiding citizens are disarmed, and self-defense is punishable and is actually often punished more harshly than the criminal act that initiated the defense.
British activist Piers Morgan pretends to be a journalist, but he is an advocate for policies that clearly violate America’s Constitution, a document created to protect Americans against people like Mr. Morgan.
That’s why I am against “gun control.”
Eastern Sports & Outdoor Show CANCELLED
Reed Expo (or Exhibitions) just announced that the Eastern Sports & Outdoor Show is being “postponed,” which means it is effectively cancelled.
Reed Expo is canceling because of the enormous boycott of the show over their new anti-Second Amendment policy. That boycott started with a call to me from one of the show’s vendors over ten days ago. I sent a statement which was rapidly shared across the sporting community, and the sportsmen’s community (PFSC, HUSH, WFE Foundation, NWTF) leapt into action. Before you knew it, Reed Expos was getting kicked in the teeth by hurt, angry American citizens. The betrayal was too much to bear.
Reed Expos is a British company. Britain was once a great nation, and the British were once a great people, but they have decided to disarm themselves and to criminalize self-defense. Failed gun control of every sort is de rigeur in England, and Reed Expos took the dubious but very British position of banning from the show the one gun that most symbolizes the Second Amendment: The AR-15.
That upset their core audience. That core audience just fought back. And wait until the breach-of-contract lawsuits start flying against Reed Expos. The company will probably lose tens of millions of dollars. They may go bankrupt. That would be their own fault, however, because at every step over the past two weeks, they were asked to reconsider their policy change. Neither vendors nor paying visitors wanted to miss the show. Reed Expos stuck to their guns, and has suffered the consequences.
Message to businesses: If you stand with us, we will stand with you. And if you stand against us, we will stand against you.
Next stop: Hollywood, the least principled, most hypocritical, most destructive location on Earth. It’s like that one place is the epicenter of a continual tidal wave of crap that splashes all over the planet. It’s time to financially punish empty-headed actors like Danny Glover, who profited enormously from using guns in his movies, but who now says that the Second Amendment was designed to protect slavery.
Three cheers to the American sportsman: You did it. You united. You had an effect. You should be proud of yourselves.
No Empty Words, Please
Talking with a gun-owning Democrat friend and then a gun-owning Republican friend on Friday, the subject in both phone calls centered on just how far this anti-Second Amendment effort is aimed.
My Democrat friend said that the Democrats don’t really want all of our guns and that they are already backing away from many of their toughest positions staked out two to three weeks ago. My Republican friend said not to count on the many non-voting gun owners for political support or actual resistance. Why, he asked, would a guy who has never voted in his life, freeloaded off the NRA and his local gun club to stand up for his interests, and rarely does anything for his community suddenly get politically active now? And just how far will that same guy go to resist unconstitutional gun bans and door-to-door confiscation?
Interesting stuff. A year ago this was the purview of the far right and conspiracy theorists. Now it is as real as the air that greets your lungs when you awaken in bed in the morning. And these two guys are both wrong.
First, I am convinced that most Democrats want every single gun taken away from private citizens. For example, a few years ago a local congressman, Joe Hoeffel (SP?), wrote legislation to aggressively control muzzleloading guns. You know, the kinds of guns your great-great-grandfather used in the Civil War and which pose their greatest threat to toes when these heavy art pieces are dropped from the unsuspecting hands that have foolishly removed them from their ancient mountings above the fireplace. Not exactly a public threat. But lots of people react against that greatest symbol of American freedom, and in fact, Congressman Hoeffel had plenty of support.
Second, I am convinced that my Republican friend is wrong, because I grew up in an extremely rural place, where everyone had guns, few people were politically active, and where a healthy suspicion of the government was endemic (and thus, not much time was invested in anything government). A lot of my neighbors, the closest being about half a mile away in any direction, were descended from those Scots-Irish tribesmen who had fled imperial Britain to find enough room to run a still and live unhampered in the 1700s New World. Their anti-government attitudes have always resulted in the toughest fighters, even if that isn’t evident at first or second glance.
Pushed hard enough, they too will be shooting out of their second story windows at government goon squads coming to confiscate their guns. Yes, yes, I know, I sound like a ‘fringe lunatic’ here.
Which brings me back to my Democrat friend. My response to him and to other Democrats who have perhaps foolishly engaged me in discussion about this topic in the past few weeks, including an avowedly liberal reporter from New York City, is this: You are not taking our guns. You’re just not. Anti gun laws have zero to do with crime control, and everything to do with government control.
Most people know me as a passionate conservationist, a birds-n-bunnies guy, a hunter who cares for the green woods, and that’s all true. I am a peaceful guy who just cannot shake certain aspects of my Quaker upbringing, no matter how hard I try. And if I am pushed hard enough, I will meet gun confiscation with armed resistance. Because to do anything else is an abdication of my Constitutional duties.
See, the Second Amendment guarantees the individual right to belong to an armed militia. Necessary to a free state, those local, grass roots, citizen-led militias were intended from the founding of our nation to be an active counterbalance to a centralized, national, federal army. Because political rights are only as good as the citizens’ ability to force change or resist tyranny, the Second Amendment is the one right that guarantees all the other rights in the Bill of Rights.
So go ahead, call me a radical, a nut, a whacko, an alarmist. I wear such appellations with pride in times like these. Someone once said something cute, like, extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice; by backing up the Second Amendment, we are backing up the entire Constitution, and if that is a vice in the eyes of a particular political party, then so be it.
I am standing my ground, proud, unwavering, no matter what illegal law is passed in America. I will not abide by it. I will dissent and I will resist. This love of liberty is a so-called vice that many otherwise quiet Americans will join. Trust me. I am an American, and I know.