A Good First Step

Tom McClintock claimed victory Tuesday night after a costly, bruising Republican primary and prepared to face Democratic winner Charlie Brown in a November match-up to replace retiring Rep. John Doolittle in Congress.

California 4th District gun owners: If you've been involved, now is the time to redouble your efforts--if you haven't been, why on earth not?

Speaking of Politics...

...I just got the following from the Tom McClintock campaign:

As you know, however, my liberal opponent is a multi-millionaire and I am not. Instead of writing myself a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars, I must rely on dedicated individuals like you, who have stood with me through thick and thin and wholeheartedly believe that we will bring our Republican principles back to the forefront of our nation's political discourse.

We have a finance deadline coming up on March 31 and the more funds we can show on that report the more secure our position as the front-runner becomes. Will you help me show as commanding a position as possible on March 31?

Well, California gun owners? Will you?

Kopel on Paul

Is Paul still a longshot? Yes, but so were George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, and Gary Hart. It is true that Republicans have, for over half a century, nominated whoever was leading in the first Gallup poll after Labor Day. But the past doesn’t control the future. Until 2000, for instance, no-one who had lost the New Hampshire primary had ever won the general election.

Polls show that about quarter of Americans are libertarians, in a general sense, so Paul has lots of room for growth. If he can keep raising enough money to get his message out, then with some strong finishes in the early states, he will start getting earned media.

But the "conventional wisdom" tells us he can't win--that is, the people who always tell us to give up without a fight and to negotiate from an initial position of compromise and appeasement say don't even try...

If half the gun owners who mindlessly parrot this line would throw their support behind him, they might be surprised at what can be accomplished.

I saw this same defeated-before-engaged "strategy" play out in California, where the establishment Republicans and weak-kneed gun owners proclaimed a Tom McClintock loss a foregone conclusion--even though Gallup polls at the time showed he had a substantial lead over the top democrat if Arnold--an avowed gun grabber--was not in the picture. The result? Welcome to the first and only state (thus far) to ban a bolt action rifle based on caliber.

Ah the hell with it. Tell me I'm wrong and put your faith in a "lesser of two evils." The skids are already being greased by some in the "gun camp" to fall behind Giuilani because of the Hillary threat. Besides, why enter the fray and actually do something based on principles when we can just make a dismissive comment and give up now? Isn't that the way revolutions always happen?

I read a comment on KABA Newslinks this morning that I really like:

If supporting the Constitution makes you unelectable we're doomed anyway.

Full Auto Fundraising

The machinegun fundraiser for the New Hampshire Republican Party on Sunday was an opportunity to let off a little steam and tell candidates in next year's US presidential election that for many Americans, gun rights matter.

While I support the concept of a machine gun fundraiser in principle, my problem with money going to the Republican Party, as opposed to a specific candidate, is that they will allocate the funds to candidates because they have an (R) after their names--not necessarily because they have shown any fidelity to the right of the people to keep and bear arms. So if Giuliani or Mitt is the nominee, guess where the gun owner contributions will end up?

Not a man in the pack is interested in doing anything to roll back federal infringements except Ron Paul. And the "moderate" GOP establishment--and NRA-- are following the same course with him that they used in California to sideline Tom McClintock.

CRPA's Line in the Sand

There is none.

Yeah, I know--Phil Angelides will really really ban guns.

And yeah, I know, Arnold did refuse to sign some gun bills.

All of those bills collectively did not have the significance of his signing into law the ban on .50 caliber rifles, or his approving a law that disarms citizens who have not been convicted of any crime--but have merely been accused by someone with a motive to hurt them.



And here's the thing. He warned us.

He told us "Gun control should be stiffer," that he supported the Brady Bill, favored the "assault weapons" ban and "closing the loophole of the gun shows." He endorsed "trigger lock laws," and pledged to sign legislation requiring gun owners to pass a state-defined test in order to purchase a handgun, requiring load indicators or magazine safety disconnects on semiauto handguns manufactured after 2006, and banning .50 caliber rifles.

Some of us (OK, me) watched in frustration as warnings went unheeded and most major gun groups stayed silent during the recall that resulted in Arnold's elevation to power, one even claiming that he was secretly pro-gun and had given some groups money. "Good size chunks" of it.

The truth is, Californians have no candidate who is pro-rkba who has a chance of winning. To suggest otherwise, to endorse a known gungrabber, is an insult to gun owners.

Why not just tell us the truth?

I wouldn't have a problem with CRPA telling its members that Angelides will be more active and hostile against us than Arnold, and to weigh that fact in their decision making. That would be an honest assessment, and if people chose to vote defensively, that would at least be an informed choice.

But to endorse him?

The best we can hope for this election is to put Tom McClintock within a heartbeat of the post, and I wonder how many of you California gun owners reading this have sent a contribution to his campaign. I have. He really needs it. That's the endorsement message we should be hearing from our "leaders."

But it looks like CRPA will end up having it both ways. Their "recommended" candidate can ban the guns, and their lawyer can provide the escort service to turn 'em in.

[Thanks to Dave L for sending me the brochure, and to John S for sending me a picture of the endorsement page.]

LA Gun Task Force Serves Another Search Warrant

The LA County Gun Task Force has served another search warrant on the home of another member of the fifty caliber community. On Monday September 18th, eighteen police cars swarmed the neighborhood where the FCSA member lives and served a search warrant signed by Judge Steven Kleifield of the LA County Superior Court. The officers were at the residence for several hours and confiscated all semi-automatic firearms belonging to the victim...

It should be noted the LA Gun Task Force used "High Risk" entry tactics by sending a SWAT Entry team to make the initial entry into the victim's residence. Gun owners in LA County need to be prepared to expect these kinds of entry tactics and respond to commands from any officers if you are contacted.

FCI wants everyone to be aware that the LA County Gun Task Force is lead by agents from BATFE; LAPD and LASO. They appear to have focused their attention on members of the fifty caliber community and are aggressively trying to arrest law abiding citizens for just being "Gun Owners"...

John Burtt, Chmn
FCI

I'm sorry, Mr. Burtt. But I could be a lot sorrier.

Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the .50 BMG ban into law. He told us he would before he was elected. He also endorsed banning "assault weapons."

So why were you silent during the gubernatorial campaign, when a clear choice to support a solid pro-gun candidate was offered? (And before any naysayers offer unsubstantiated pronouncements that Tom McClintock couldn't have won, you'd better be prepared to offer superior evidence over the Gallup poll showing he could have--and dramatically--had the GOP establishment not done everything in its power to jettison principle and go for the populist power grab--regardless of the consequences.)

As for your member having semiautos confiscated, well, some of us have been beating that drum for years, and using the intent of the Founders--and the potential disasterous consequences if tyranny continues to grow--to back up our convictions. That includes exploring potential consequences of the insurrectionary theory should the pressure increase.

Yet when you got a chance to have your views heard by a mass audience, you couldn't distance yourself far enough, and publicly dismissed us. You declared "I would not consider those people mainstream Americans," eschewing the citizen militia in favor of your sport.

In the face of massive public propaganda by those in power (and their useful idiot supporters), who would ban all guns in private hands, you can't rely on public support for your "sport." And you certainly can't rely on trying to appear reasonable to The Los Angeles Times.

I note in another alert, you refer your members to a law firm. Fine and good, but just keep this in mind: This is the same firm that acted as the agent of surrender for a firearm that had previously been declared legal by the attorney general.

One final note on the dynamic entry tactics being used to intimidate us. I asked the CA DoJ rep a direct question, in front of over a hundred gun owners, at the NRA-brokered gun registration meeting where the state came to explain its position on its new semiauto ban. This is the exchange I had with their rep on SWAT raids:

I then asked the DOJ overlords, “If we defy your terms of dictated surrender, how many SWAT raids do you estimate it will take to crush and destroy us? And how many patriots, including military and police personnel and their family members, are you and your masters in Sacramento willing to imprison or murder enforcing this treasonous edict?"

...The DOJ flack standing at the microphone said, "None," which is a transparent lie, as the California Attorney General has pledged to vigorously enforce both Roberti-Roos and SB-23, and they spent much of the evening telling us how they intended to do so. In essence, this liar, acting in his official capacity as a law enforcement official, told a crowd of citizens at a public meeting, in direct response to a specific question, that they have no plans to enforce the law and prosecute resisters. As the Members’ Council had a camcorder running during the meeting, I hope they save the tape as evidence should some hapless citizen be prosecuted because he took this agent at his word.

You can't play nice with these people. You can't rely on "authorized journalists" to stir up community support by printing the truth. And you certainly can't preserve the Second Amendment by retaining a lawyer to arrange confiscation of your firearms--that is unless you believe surrender is the way gun owners should respond to The War on Guns.

A Line in the Sand

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly opines "the exclusion of Internet communications from the coordinated communications regulation severely undermines" McCain-Feingold. Now the FEC is talking about bringing the hammer down on bloggers who link to political campaign websites.

The links to Ron Paul and Tom McClintock stay in the column on the left. If and when an enforcement effort begins, more links will go up.

"This is an incredible thicket," says Bradley Smith, an FEC Commissioner. "If someone else doesn't take action, for instance in Congress, we're running a real possibility of serious Internet regulation. It's going to be bizarre."

Bradley, are you a Commissioner first and an American second? "An incredible thicket"??? Jesus, man, it's an act of war.

And we should all remember to thank George W. Bush for refusing to honor his oath and veto legislation he knew was unconstitutional.

The hell with these tyrants. Like they can arrest every one of us who defy this act of treachery and despotism. What an opportunity to demonstrate how impotent they are when met with mass resistance.

We need some kind of symbol we can post on our blogs, websites and emails that defines us as resistors to this tyranny.