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 Copyright ©2003 Anthony Canales |
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 Anthony Canales is the President of the San Fernando Valley NRA Member’s Council. He works as a Quality Control Manager in Glendale, California. He is married with one son. The opinions expressed in 'News Briefs' belong soley to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Rifle Association of America or the NRA Members' Councils of California. |
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August 17, 2003 “…We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately…”
-Ben Franklin, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence
To All, Ben Franklin sure was a prescient old bird:
No Retreat, No Surrender: Imagine for a moment what would have happened in the United States if, instead of active political involvement, firearms rights activists were to have retreated to the haven of Second Amendment legalism.
Instead of surviving the regulatory Stalingrad of the Clinton Years, firearms manufacturers would be shuttered, gunowners would have seen their most prized personal possessions consigned to the smelter and the scrap heap, and the Second Amendment would have been consigned to some darkened vault in the basement of the Smithsonian.
Fortunately, dedicated individuals took it into their own hands to not only preserve their rights and traditions, but engaged in a political and educational offensive on the “enemy’s” home turf. The domestic threat to the Second Amendment was countered by a most active engagement on a broad front across the American political battlefield. The result was that from the various and sundry state legislatures, to the hallowed halls of Congress and, yes, even the White House itself, a message supporting the individual right to keep and bear arms was made loud and clear.
Not surprisingly, one theater of this political war remained an active threat, a haven for those whose interest lies in seeing a rejuvenated Brady Bunch or a well-endowed VPC. It should not surprise anyone that the elites from a host of foreign countries, especially those who do not prize individual rights so much as their own ability to dictate outcomes, are still engaged offensively. They remain, even to this day, interested in establishing a global political apparatus that would prefer to eventually make civilian firearms ownership untenable.
So, like President Bush in the War on Terrorism, firearms activists are faced with the same decision, as to either take the battle to the enemy’s terrain, or to stand passively by and concede the benefits of maneuver, concentration of force, and timing to those who oppose that most fundamental of individual rights.
Fortunately, in recent years, a number of “confreres” were formed and were able to be effective allies to the NRA’s global efforts. Groups like the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities were able to assist at halting the supposedly invincible advance of those in the UN and NGO community who advocated a firearms confiscation agenda that included such “estimable” ideas as heavy taxation, restriction of calibers, and even rationing (Sort of makes you wonder if the “furriners” and the Brady Bunch have been having long chats together). The combined victory at the various UN Small Arms conferences may seem slim or even “pyrrhic” to the uninitiated. But then, so did the Battle of the Coral Sea seem to some of an earlier generation.
Yet despite this, those like David Codrea, in an article in the September 2003 issue of “Guns and Ammo”, would continue to council disengagement, retreat from the global battlefield, and a kind of pseudo-isolationism that fails to recognize that there are no protective oceans to hide behind in a world-wide battle of ideas. It is apparently more important for Codrea and his ilk to maintain an ideological purity of thought, rather than achieve any of the incremental positional successes that could best guarantee eventual victory. What is more, it is hard to imagine how an almost Islamist-like exclusionary world-view will enable the Codreas of the world to convert more than the occasional wandering “Aryan” to the paradise of a rapidly diminishing gunowner “reservation”.
Fortunately others, including the NRA leadership, council that it is a better strategy to take the fight to the enemy on their own ground, with as many allies as can be found, and by using the “weapons” appropriate for each and every venue. For it is only by active engagement, education, and persuasion of each and every foreigner available to the merits of the armed, law-abiding citizen can there be any hope at all of a future with a meaningful Second Amendment. In essence, the firearms owner’s best defense is what amounts to an eventual, though gradual, globalization of a constitutionally guaranteed right of the individual to keep and bear firearms.
Of course, in this case, the applicable venues include the conference hall, the court of public opinion, and even the U.N. General Assembly Floor. Rather than mortars and machine guns, the choice of weapons are the lawyer-lobbyist (armed with a phone tree list that could sink the QE II) and as many fraternal NGO’s as can be had. For it is only by lobbying foreign politicians and the citizens of a majority of foreign lands that a case for the individual right to keep and bear arms can have any global success.
And it is only by having an eventual global success that Americans can help preserve the right to keep and bear arms here in the United States. Victory will deny the gun-control fedayeen the political, logistical, and financial support they will need to reinvigorate themselves and wage their low intensity conflict here in the U.S.
Victory will also mean a broader consensus on the real meaning of individual rights, enough so that even our domestic judiciary will not be tempted by the siren songs coming from the elite salons of European socialism.
Thus it is left to the firearms activist to compare and contrast the two world visions, that of the Codreas of the world versus that of one of the pre-eminent civil rights organizations in the country. One countenances retreat from the world stage and a shunning of civilized (though seemingly interminable) dialogue. The other advocates active engagement with, and the eventual defeat of, those in opposition the most basic means of self-determination and self-defense. If this were war, the choice could never be clearer.
But then again, it is politics-as-war, after all.
Story basis may be found at:
September 2003 Issue, Guns and Ammo, at news-stands now;
http://www.gunsandammomag.com/in_the_field/world_forum_0519/
Hollywood Blacklist?: In one of the more intriguing stories from this weekend, Linda Deutsch writes about the conviction of actor Tom Sizemore on several counts of domestic violence.
A jury convicted Sizemore of one count of physical abuse (sort of sounds like assault and battery, before Lautenberg changed the legal landscape), along with having made verbal threats. He faces perhaps as much as 4 years in a California prison (Up to 2 years if he eats the creamed corn and keeps the guards happy.).
Sizemore and his attorney did note that the jury acquitted him on additional charges of physical abuse, thus trying to position Sizemore as favorably as possible for an additional trial where he is charged with punching another woman in the face. In the first trial, the victim was none other than Heidi Fleiss, who had been released from jail after having served time for tax evasion.
But Sizemore’s wish to “…put this behind me and do what I have always loved doing, making movies…” may actually run into some interesting limitations.
After all, he may no longer be eligible to make movies where he is in the presence of firearms. The former star of “Black Hawk Down” and “Saving Private Ryan” now belongs to a prohibited class when it comes to firearms, and thus might find it harder to obtain work in the types of films he has been accustomed to getting.
Now, Hollywood Magic can extend to making props, which are not guns, look like guns. But Sizemore now belongs to a cadre of actors (Robert Downey Jr., possibly even Alec Baldwin) whose personal antics may have put standard action roles out of reach if real firearms are involved for the sake of “realism” or “plot”.
Now, the real issue will be to see if Hollywood will fight this latest prohibition on actors’ and actresses’ ability in “getting work” in the same manner in which they differed on the original “Blacklist” or even the more recent tribulations over the war in Iraq. It would be heartening, to say the least, to see if Susan Sarandon or Martin Sheen will take up the cause of a revision to Senator Lautenberg’s handiwork.
Just don’t hold your breath.
Story may be found at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
Respectfully,
Anthony Canales SFVMC-NRA
© 2003 Anthony Canales All rights reserved |
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