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Liberty Notes It is a good day for Liberty There will be a police show 4 - 5 August, 2001 in the convention center on Front Street. It will be from 9 to 5 on Saturday, and 9 to 3 on Sunday. The show will feature people who collect either policemen or police paraphernalia. Either way, it should be interesting. The voices in my head tell me to plant flowers, pet puppies, and paint pictures. I have strange voices. I think I know why I have more books than bookcases. The books are breeding. The bookcases, however, are sterile. Josh Sugarman of the virulently anti-gun "Violence Policy Center" has a book out; EVERY HANDGUN IS AIMED AT YOU. He claims that no one hunts with handguns, and anyone claiming to do so is lying. He tells such blatant lies, and is still taken as an authoritative source by the news media. People have compared these notes to the writings of Jeff Cooper in Guns and Ammo magazine. I take this as high praise; I am not sure how Mr. Cooper would take it. I won't tell him if you won't. HCI has been boasting over the election results. They won at the state level in Missouri, and the senatorial race, all priority targets for them. It is infuriating to do all that work on the elections, and to still hearing their arrogant, mean spirited boasting. And they are right. We have our work cut out for us. We need to recruit more members, raise more money, network with more organizations, and obtain more means to put out information. After twelve years of effort, I see a glimmer of hope. The Emmerson decision may go our way at the appellate level, Attorney General Ashcroft has firmly endorsed the individual rights view of the Second Amendment, the federal government will not be funding the prohibitionists for the next few years. This gives us a window of opportunity; we must work together to take advantage of it. I was watching a TV program on war crimes, and the comment was made that the Viet Nam experience was unprecedented in US military history. I disagree. I have yet to hear of a combat story from Viet Nam which does not put me in mind of a story from another war. The technology changes, that is all. The rules of engagement were different, quite different, but war itself does not change. These rules were quite similar to those faced by the British Army on the Northwest Frontier of India before independence (young Infantry officers who have not read BUGLES AND A TIGER must, before they do any real damage). Viet Nam was not our first guerrilla war. We fought guerrillas in Korea, as guerrillas in WW II, more guerrillas in Nicaragua and Haiti, The Philippines at the turn of the century (and on through WW II), the Indian Wars (the Seminoles especially), the Civil War, and during the Revolution we fought as guerrillas and against loyalist guer! rillas. The problem has been that the Army refuses to remember these lessons. I am convinced that Senator Kerry was in a shootout the night those civilians were killed. The VC took the weapons and their wounded and fled, leaving civilians caught in the crossfire, and dead VC in civilian clothes. The excellent SLEDGE PATROL has been reprinted. In 1940 Greenland, a colony of Denmark, quietly succeeded when the mother country was occupied by Germany. The governor formed a militia out of a handful of local hunters. These hunters skirmished with nazi landing parties trying to set up weather stations, pinpointing them for American bombers. This would be a minor event, but the weather in Europe moves from west to east. With the Greenland weather reports in Allied hands, the air force knew what to expect, the Luftwaffe did not. In June, 1944, Rommel's weatherman predicted continued storms in the channel, and the Field Marshal departed for Germany. Eisenhower's weatherman consulted the Greenland reports, saw a gap in the storms, and the invasion was on. A similar force was set up in WW II Alaska. Alaska's National Guard had been mobilized and sent to the lower 48, it was replaced by the Arkansas National Guard (this was the Army after all). Alaska was on the front lines, and its defenders did not know how to live, much less fight in the cold. An excellent book, MEN OF THE TUNDRA (long and lamentably out of print) recounts the efforts of an Army officer "Muktuk" Marston in organizing the "Alaskan Territorial Guard" AKA "Eskimo Guard", largely of Eskimos. He distributed 1917 Enfields and ammunition to create a fighting force. He faced opposition from local white officials who did not want the Eskimos to have guns (if I had treated someone they way they treated the Eskimos, I would not want them to have guns either). The Eskimos made an enthusiastic defense force, and released regular troops for other duty. They also announced the end of segregation. ! At the end of the war Marston was instructed to recover the Army's Enfields. He explained that the cost of recovering the equipment exceeded the value of the rifles. The Army didn't care; it wanted the Eskimos disarmed. Marston then told his superiors that the rifles were now coated with "Eskimo germs", which, if brought down to the lower 48, would thaw out and cause an epidemic. They believed that! The Eskimos kept their rifles and organization on their own until the unit was formally recognized as part of the Alaska National Guard. We have three victories in time for Independence Day. Attorney General Ashcroft will destroy the "instant check" records within 24 hours. It is a small victory, but it convulses the prohibitionists, who will use it to raise funds. The Michigan Supreme Court has blocked efforts to put that state's new CCW law to a referendum before it goes into effect. The prohibitionists will be able to petition for referendum AFTER it goes into effect, however, by then the law will have been working for nearly a year and a half. We can expect a tremendous effort to destroy the law; we should welcome it. We can soak up their money and effort in such a campaign, as they have done to us. We must support the Michigan grassroots in organizing a defense to the expected offensive. For the first time, it is the prohibitionists who are trying to overturn a law. The California Supreme Court has ruled in our favor on registering "assault weapons". Again, this is a small victory, but will occupy the prohibitionists with recovering this ground, rather than scheming to take more of our rights. Ann Landers blames recent school violence on an increased availability of guns. This is a lie. It is an obvious lie, but the prohibitionists continue to tell it, and the media accepts it. Thumbing through DRAWING THE LINE, I was struck by surveying terms of the Revolutionary period. In interpreting the Second Amendment, we have often taken the term "well regulated" in its late 18th century meaning of well functioning. In order to survey the Mason-Dixon line, an astronomical clock, or regulator, was used to establish a starting point. Many of the Founders were familiar with surveying. Air Taser Inc provides me with a CD showing a new, improved, versions of their electric stun gun. Their products have differed from other electric stun guns by firing barbs on 15 to 21 foot leads. This gives the citizen a buffer zone. It is marketed to police forces. They boast that it is "cop proofed" and demonstrate that it can withstand being run over by a squad car loaded with doughnuts. See www.eTASER.com Gun Owners of America will establish a "mall" in cyberspace to sell guns and ammunition. GOA will not sell anything, it will only provide a forum for others to sell. See http://www.gunowners.org Governor Holden is criticized for an extravagant inauguration, which is still not paid for, excessive flying in state aircraft, sometimes to the same place in a single day, and approving a new stadium deal for St. Louis, when the legislature had already rejected the idea. He did very poorly in his first session of the legislature. He is behind the eight-ball, he may be vulnerable. The governor has also issued an executive order allowing money to be deducted from state employee paychecks payable to unions which represent some of the state workers. The deduction is not for union membership, which gives them benefits, but for union services on the employee's behalf. This is a political payoff, and paying off with other people's money. I do not doubt that union membership will be an advantage to many workers, but this forced tribute has upset a number of legislators. If we could force all gun owners to pay us for services, we wouldn't do it. The Kansas City police had an abysmal response time to 911 calls. It moved officers from administrative and specialty programs to patrol for an experimental 90 day program. A study has shown that the move reduced response time. Now that they have moved back to their former jobs, response time has gotten worse. They needed a study to know this. If you like freedom of
religion; If you like freedom of speech; If you like freedom of the
press; If you like freedom of
assembly; If you like the right to
privacy; If you like the right to
remain silent; If you like the Miranda
warnings; If you like your property
protected from government seizure; If you like liberty; If you like the right to be
free of unreasonable search and seizure; If you like the right to have
an attorney; If you like the right to
privacy; If you like the right to bail; If you like the right to a
grand jury review of charges; If you like the right to
confront witnesses against you; If you like the protection of
preliminary hearings; If you like public trials; If you like fair trials; If you like the right to a
jury trial; If you like prohibitions
against double jeopardy; If you like due process of
law; When people are given rights, some will abuse those rights. The purpose of our rights is to prevent a greater abuse by government. |