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Pedaling Backwards

-- Feb. 20, 2007

Tim Hardaway, former NBA player: “ I hate gays.” (followed by, “I didn’t really mean it. I apologize”).

Jim Zumbo, Television and Magazine Hunting Celebrity: “I hate assault rifles.” (followed by, “I really didn’t mean it. I apologize”).

The realties of life in this politically correct and instantly polarizing age are that when planning to exercise one’s right to speak freely, consider first the consequences. Especially those that will cost you lots of money.

Thus, both Hardaway and Zumbo find themselves in the position of checking their bank accounts to see if there’s enough in there to balance against their as-yet-unpaid or upcoming bills. Both have been fired from high profile jobs, Hardaway from NBA-TV as an analyst, and Zumbo as a television host for his own hunting show on Versus, formerly known as Outdoor Life TV.

In Zumbo’s case, major advertisers such as Remington immediately disassociated themselves from Outdoor Life TV, and several of Jim’s other sponsors are following suit, so eager as they are to run from controversy.

Zumbo’s sin was to decry the obviously large common interest in “black guns,” weapons that were once seen as contrary to the hunting ethic. But that was before 9/11 and the wake of its aftermath when everyone was told that their lives would now change forever. Fear can be a devastating thing: an attack on one’s country, one’s family, one’s person or property, can result in ordinary citizens preparing for the worst case scenario, often called Home Defense and Personal Protection. That concern prompted 48 our of 50 states to consider, draft, and pass legislation authorizing concealed carry weapons permits for American citizens and led to Florida’s passing the first deadly force law, now followed by 14 other states, with at least eight more states considering giving citizens the right to resist with deadly force an attack on their life or their property.

Zumbo sees no use for ARs in hunting. Fine. He may not even object to them as a self-defense weapon, at least for the military and law enforcement. But our culture of perception – how we are seen by others – has what leads us to take sides on an issue, right or left, black or white, with no middle ground available even for honest discussion and disagreement: how we feel about gays, for instance, much less black guns.

The rumble stirred by both Hardaway and Zumbo had supporters immediately running for the exits of perception, lest they might become tainted by association. That’s a coward’s way out. That’s guileless. That’s unmanly. That’s greediness.

Stating your feelings about a subject, primarily when sober, may be premature and impulsive. It may also be honest. Having to apologize afterwards is backpedaling for economic reasons and, therefore, insincere. Both Hardaway and Zumbo are guilty on that score, as are so many others who are forced to recant for fear of loss of personal gain or reputation. What is a man’s worth if he unthinkingly paints himself into a corner without first considering the consequences to both himself and others? To retreat is not necessarily defeat; it’s another way of re-grouping for a more rigorous but well-thought frontal attack.

Personally, we think every honest, able-bodied, law-abiding citizen should carefully consider keeping a gun for self-protection, whether it’s a handgun, a shotgun, or a rifle of any stripe, including an AR. We have no prejudice against black guns, especially in this day and age where we have experienced terror in our neighborhoods, watched rapists rape and murderers fly airplanes into skyscrapers. Alarmist? Maybe. Prepared? Certainly. Disagree with others with whom we do not share the same views? Of course. But that’s no reason to ostracize them, socially or financially. Unless they’re aiming to kill us.

Too Many Guns? Or Not Enough?

-- Feb. 12, 2007

When America awoke this morning, it woke up to chaos caused by two shooters, one in Philadelphia and one in Salt Lake City.

In Philly, four people died and another was in critical condition after what appears to be a conflict over money brought a 40-year old shooter into a corporate board meeting at the Philadelphia Naval Business Center and opened fire, killing three men and wounded another before taking his own life with a pistol.

In a Salt Lake City mall, a young man said to be in his 20s pulled a shotgun from beneath a trench coat and randomly opened fire on shoppers and store owners, killing five people before police shot and killed him. Some reports indicated the shooter was killed by an off-duty cop while other sources said the shooter was cornered inside a store and killed by gunfire from several police.

What motivated the shooters? Why did these tragedies happen? Because there are too many guns in civilian hands? Or not enough?

We may never know the answers to the first question, but it is essential that we find out. If, in Philly, the shooter saw his financial life becoming suddenly hopeless and irreversible, what does that say about the standards of judgment from people in supervisory positions? Did they fire the shooter from his place of employment? Did they cheat him out of money honestly earned? Did he attempt to steal from them fraudulently and got caught and he decided to seek revenge? What does that say about how much importance we place in compensation, or how cheaply we believe in its benefits?

In Utah, a gun-friendly state with a high degree of family values, what could have prompted the shooter to decide to take his wrath out on innocent shoppers? Was it deprivation of opportunity, of income, of a secure future?

Or was it too many guns everywhere? Or not enough guns anywhere?

If more citizens were legally armed and carrying concealed weapons, could one of them have stopped the shooter after his first trigger-pull, or would the armed citizen have become “a second shooter” only to be killed by police who, in the instant of chaos, might not be able to identify the CCW permit holder?

These situations cry out for answers but no honest and sensible answer can mark the gun as the cause for the violence. It must explore the motives of the shooters and provide some measure of security for the honest citizen who may be called upon to, in an instant, defend not only his own life but the lives of fellow citizens.

What would you do in such a situation where you were witness to a violent crime in progress and you were legally carrying? Argue for more guns? Or less guns?

Illegal Guns

--January 25, 2007

Forty big city, blue state mayors met yesterday in Washington D.C. in an effort to find ways to ban “illegal guns” from their cities. The forty are members of 120 mayors New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says belongs to his Mayors Against Illegal Guns group. The attendees came from typically liberal blue state cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, Boston, Washington, Minneapolis, Hartford and Newark.

The mayors want to crack down on illegal guns on the streets of their cities. Fine. Now define illegal guns.

Is there any thinking person out there who doesn’t understand that, without clear definition, Bloomberg could simply declare any gun to be illegal?

After November’s elections in which democrats took back control of both the Senate and the House, its leadership declared that they had no intention of bringing new anti-gun bills into the legislative mix. Too many pro-gun democrats were elected that would make passage of such bills difficult, they said.

Right.

Declaring that illegal guns are a nationwide problem, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said that four House members will serve on a newly created task force to introduce legislation in Congress to ban illegal guns: Democrats Charles Rangle of New York and John Conyers of Michigan, and Republicans Peter King of New York and Mark Kirk of Illinois, again, all anti-gun blue states.

Bloomberg aims to identify as illegal, any gun of any type used in the commission of any crime. To the mayor’s, that sounds good. To anyone else, that’s obviously questionable. Thus, if a shotgun is used in a crime, shotguns could be declared illegal. If your .22 rabbit gun is used in a crime, out go .22’s. Your pellet pistol, if used in a crime, then makes all pellet guns illegal.

You know where this is going.

So do the gun grabbers.

Your Life is Your Credit Rating; What's It Worth?

-- January 2, 2007

“Don’t leave home without it,” was the promotional rallying cry of American Express in their credit card advertising a few years ago.

A bit later, former pro footballer/ movie actor Bryan Cox, commenting on his upbringing in rough St. Louis neighborhoods said that, in the celebrity business, carrying a gun is like a credit card, “Don’t leave home without one.”

Tank Johnson is a defensive end for the Chicago Bears. He is also a gun owner and was arrested last month after police raided his home to allegedly arrest another man who lived there for marijuana possession. In Johnson’s home, police also found six guns: two tactical rifles, three handguns – a .44 mag revolver, a .45 pistol, and a .50 cal (likely a S&W M500) – and a .308 Winchester hunting rifle, all of which could be found today in any of a million U.S. homes. The problem is that Johnson’s home is in Gurnee, just north of Chicago, the anti-gun capital of the U.S. Chances are better than good that the marijuana search warrant was a good excuse to find Johnson’s legally bought guns.

In November of 2005, Johnson got 18 months probation on a misdemeanor charge of having a gun in his SUV after a nightclub parking lot valet reported seeing the gun. In the latest incident, Johnson was cited with possessing guns without proper identification, meaning that he violated his probation because, in the anti-gun capital of the U.S., a gun owner has to be issued a permit to own (not necessarily carry concealed) a handgun. Unfortunately, the Second Amendment didn’t distinguish between which arms a citizen is guaranteed the right to keep and bear, long guns or handguns.

Why would Johnson, a successful potentially Super Bowl bound NFL pro footballer want to carry a gun in the first place? Wouldn’t you wish you could ask that question of any one of the pro players in Darrent Williams’ rented Humvee limo early New Years morning? But you can’t.

Williams, a rising defensive cornerback star for the Denver Broncos, which had their 2006/2007 season ended by a loss to the San Francisco 49ers News Years Eve, was shot and killed several hours later after leaving a nightclub in downtown Denver following a verbal confrontation with as yet unknown parties, as he and several other guests, including other Bronco players left the nightclub in their stretch limo. A white Chevrolet Tahoe pulled up along side Williams’ limo and opened fire, shooting 14 rounds into the limo, one of which struck Williams in the neck killing him instantly. Williams blood-soaked body lay in the arms of another player, star Bronco receiver Javon Walker, as Williams died.

Could it be that no one in the attacked limo had a gun with which to return fire? Or that, because the NFL forbids its players from carrying a gun for protection – a la Chicago Bears’ Tank Johnson – that celebrity athletes are so publicly vulnerable, and cowardly criminals like the one who murdered Williams know it?

Guns helped make America the greatest country in the world. America would probably be far less safe today if that were not true because…because, cowardly criminals will always have guns, regardless of their country of origin or residence. Criminals in Japan have guns, criminals in Great Britain have guns, criminals in Canada have guns, criminals in Iraq have guns (so do most citizens for obvious reasons of self-defense). But, if you’re a NFL player, you can’t carry one to work and, presumably, not after work, as well.

For Williams, the NFL has long ago declared its edict in two words: Credit Canceled.

What�s Wrong With This Picture?

--Aug. 24, 2006

The Mayor of Boston, as you will read in today’s GunPro Gun Headlines, above, had a close encounter of the potentially killing kind. Strolling the streets of a renowned violent prone neighborhood, Mayor Tom Menino sought answers to his questions about quelling violence in the ‘hood from the area’s residents. In the process, an obviously stupid 19-year old criminal packing a loaded semi-auto .45 ran down the street past the mayor, whereupon the mayor’s cops, alerted to the chase, joined in.

Menino, it was reported, came within 10-feet of the potential shooter. The mayor then reacted with brash indignation at the audacity of the kid with the gun brushing the mayor’s entourage.

Put under arrest after tossing the gun and leaping a fence, the suspect, Adelino Montiero, had his rap sheet checked, revealing that he had been arrested in 2004 for carrying a loaded handgun, serving one year in prison, which followed his probation on an assault charge a year earlier, in 2003. This latest charge bought him his freedom for a $25,000 bond (only 10% of which need be deposited in cash) until his case comes to trial.

So what’s wrong with this picture?

The kid is a convicted felon. Don’t they put up those “Use a Gun, Go To Jail” billboards up in crime-ridden Boston like they do in so many other cities?

The problem is obvious: courts are far too lenient on awarding jail time sentences to gun abusers. Montiero got 12 months in prison and probation for two felony violations. Put him behind bars and toss the key, for crying out loud! And tell Mayor Menino that his gun control campaign needs teeth, not to control guns, but to bite the convicted criminals that use them.

A Well Armed Militia

--Sept. 27, 2006

Could it happen here?

In cities across America, Monday mornings launch a new week of going to work. Whether New York or Los Angeles, tens of thousands of people ride public transportation. Barely unnoticed, a young college-age student hops on board a bus or a subway train with a backpack full of “books.” At a given moment, the student touches a cell phone button and the train explodes in a ball of fire and thunder. Hundreds, maybe, are killed as the result of a jihadist movement that the recently declassified National Security Estimate called “diffuse and independent.”

The document also warned that the jihad movement is now global and, despite the lack of a major terrorist attack in the U.S. since 9/11, no one would be surprised if such a scenario described above were to happen here.

While no one will come out and flatly say that Americans are not safe at home anymore, there is a growing interest in self-protection that transcends just the notion of defending oneself from a domestic criminal assault; indeed, American citizens are now arming themselves to defend against local terrorist attacks, whether on a bus or a subway, or at a stoplight on a city street.

A week ago, a cop in plain clothes, in his own personal car on his way to a training session in a Denver suburb, was stopped at an intersection when for no apparent reason, a man walked up to the car and fatally shot the policeman. Officials have thus far failed to determine a motive for the killing.

There are lots of scenarios these days for Americans to be armed. The threat of independent terrorist strikes are only the latest and probably the most difficult to anticipate since the world’s radicalist members of modern generations are so determined to die for a cause that they have no concern for – men, women, babies – the innocent civilians they would kill in the process.

Firearms training is considered essential to avoid total mayhem in a defensive situation among civilians. Maybe more important is training to recognize potential bomb-clad terrorists or assailants. That is the next step gun owners need to pursue in their education to become not only an armed citizen militia, but one trained to recognize deadly threats to themselves and their fellow Americans.

People Power

--Sept. 9, 2006

For more than two centuries, America has enjoyed the kind of liberty of which other countries only dream. Most countries are run by government power. America is run by People Power.

In America, People Power is entrenched in the guarantee of two weapons – the gun and the vote. Each one is a guarantee of the other that democracy prevails.

Constitutionally, America’s founding fathers recognized that governments throughout the world seek to control their national populations by disarmament, the complete removal of choice and defense. Voting provides citizens to choose their governmental leadership and an armed citizenry provides security against governmental suppression of the freedom to choose.

Both the vote and the gun as weapons of free citizens to control government – as opposed to government controlling its citizens’ freedoms – are abhorrent to and feared by dictatorships, monarchies, and entrenched political and religious despots throughout the world.

History has chronicled the difficult road to peace at every trail head. Immigrants from Europe, from Asia, from British colonies, from Africa, and from Latin America fled their homelands because of religious and economic persecution. They had been stripped of any chance of building better lives for their families and the freedom to believe in their own spiritual salvation.

Landing in North America, in what is now the United States of America, they brought hope as well as disagreements that resulted in the war between the states and, eventually, a union of states that agreed upon the power of its citizens to select the machinery of the self-governed. All governmental power was put into the hands of its citizens, hence, People Power.

Debate rages on over America’s foreign policy. It, as that of all other countries, is not infallible. It makes mistakes and we pay for those mistakes. But, unlike every other country in the world, we hold tight to our constitutional guarantees, the key to which is reserved in the freedom to have two things, more than any other, given to its citizens: the vote and the gun. Both are inseparable. Both are the envy of every one of the world’s other citizens.

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People Power

--Sept. 9, 2006

For more than two centuries, America has enjoyed the kind of liberty of which other countries only dream. Most countries are run by government power. America is run by People Power.

In America, People Power is entrenched in the guarantee of two weapons – the gun and the vote. Each one is a guarantee of the other that democracy prevails.

gunpro.net

Pedaling Backwards

Too Many Guns? Or Not Enough?

Illegal Guns

Your Life is Your Credit Rating; What's It Worth?

What�s Wrong With This Picture?

A Well Armed Militia

People Power

More editorials 2

People Power

More Editorials