March For Tyranny (videos)

A cold wind blew through West Chester, PA that Saturday. It was the day of the so-called March For Our Lives. While the wind was cold the protesters' anger burned and nothing good ever comes from such burning anger. 

Reacting to my sign that reads “background checks do not work” this guy was really upset. 

(I wasn't able to record the first part of the conversation as my camera had shut off.):
 

This belief in background checks is truly emotional and cult like. It's not surprising though, it's the only way to hold on to that belief in the face of overwhelming evidence that they've failed. No doubt readers noted the cherry picking of examples and denial of contrary facts. The reference to Prof. Cook at the beginning of the video was about me bringing up the article “Study Shows Brady Bill Had No Impact on Gun Homicides“. In it Prof. Cook clearly states that the Brady Bill is a failure, I.E. background checks don't work.  

These ladies were much nicer but just as wrong. They seem to think that all ARs (scary black rifles) are capable of fully automatic fire. As usual for gun rights haters they're wrongly convinced that the US has the highest murder rate in the world:

Anyone wondering about my references to social dynamics in the videos is invited to listen to this presentation by Prof. Randolph Roth of Ohio State University on the subject. I also recommend his book “American Homicide”. Both make clear that it is social dynamics, not access to guns, that drive the murder rate up or down.

The sign also lead to a very pleasant conversation with a member of Gun Sense Chester County who remembered me from Mike Weisser's presentation of March 3, 2018. I said that if they were going to claim that we have such a high murder rate in the US then that shows that all the gun control we have, including background checks, has failed. Her answer was that background checks aren't universal that's why they fail. She claimed that according to a RAND Corp study they do help a little in some cases. (This article from Newsweek says that RAND found a lack of evidence on the subject. If that's really the best they can do...) When I then pointed out that every step of the way advocates of gun control say this measure or that measure will solve the problem yet they never do. Each time gun control fails they only say we need more to make it work. We ended our conversation there.

Since my camera had shut off, again, I wasn't able to video another man who took exception to my sign. Our discussion quickly turned to the meaning of the 2nd Amendment. When I explained that it was about keeping the government disarmed by having a militia rather than standing forces he got really hot and bothered. He exclaimed that we need the government armed to protect the public from people like me. Maybe it was the hoodie I was wearing, who knows?

The cold wind also blew in a celebrity, Jay Leno. Gun owning members of his fan club may want to reconsider their memberships.

What's the takeaway from covering the march? These people are scared, hurt, and angry. They think they're doing good but good comes not from reacting emotionally but from having knowledge and thinking things through. One is reminded of the words of Judge Louis D. Brandeis:

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning, but without understanding.

A quick look at some of their signs tells us that they want to ban all the guns they think they can get away with:

 

 

The day didn't end on a sad note though. On the way home I stopped at the massive, 1700 table gun show at Oaks, PA. It sure seemed like there were more people at the gun show than attended the march. That is a good sign.

Mike Weisser: NRA Member, Gun Rights Hater

Gun Sense Chester County's brochure

Mike Weisser, who likes to be known as “the gun guy”, and I had a short conversation before his presentation on March 3, 2018 in Devon, PA. It was enlightening. Upon finding out that I'm a libertarian he asked if I refuse to pay taxes. My reply was no. Taxation is theft but I submit to the thieving government's superior force. Weisser then asked if I thought it was OK for people who can't afford housing to be kicked out to die in the street and tough luck. I said no and reminded him of the long history of mutual aid societies and lodges that provided social services before the rise of the welfare state. This lead to him asking me why the welfare state was created. My answer was to buy support and votes, in other words to control people. No, Weisser said, mutual aid societies had failed during the Great depression and the government had to rescue people from starvation. Of course, I replied, the depression caused by the government through Hoover's New Deal lite and the Federal Reserve System's bumbling overwhelmed the private welfare system in place at the time. The answer isn't a welfare state but to avoid depressions through free market policies. I brought up that it seemed strange that he would talk about hunger during the depression since the Roosevelt administration curtailed food production to boost prices during that time. Weisser then suggested that I didn't know what I was talking about. He's obviously never heard of the Agricultural Adjustment Act. The point of this paragraph is to illustrate Weisser's ignorance, statist thinking, and slavish devotion to the concept of government-as-savior.

Let's get on with guns. In the video below you can hear Weisser clearly say he's fine with the government banning guns: 

Weisser's government-as-savior point of view comes through loud and clear. No need to fear government power, it's never abused, is it? (Note to the literal minded, the last sentence was sarcasm.) You also just heard Gun Sense Chester County member Wayne Hall unconvincingly say he hopes we can solve the so-called gun violence problem without banning guns.

The next video was also taken after Weisser's presentation. He says very clearly that people don't have a right to own guns. In it one can see how obvious it is that he's on the gun rights haters side:  

What a strange view of the Constitution. Of course, the law is there to limit action. Starting with the Constitution which is supposed to limit the government not the people. James Madison was clear that “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined.” Thomas Jefferson expressed the same view when he wrote, "The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." As I wrote in Democratic Socialism, Guns, and the Failure of the Constitution:

The real issue is the question, does the government have the legal power to take people's guns? One searches the Constitution in vain trying to find a clause that empowers it to do so. However, the Tenth Amendment reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This should be a great restriction on governmental power. Since the Constitution nowhere grants the government the power to take our guns the Tenth Amendment should stop them from doing so.

Look out for those impulses! As if they drive peaceful people to murder. Rather than dealing in depth with how social dynamics are the key to solving the murder problem I'll refer readers to Professor Roth's excellent presentation on the subject “Why Is the United States the Most Homicidal Nation In the Affluent World?”.

Gun Sense Chester County's brochure

One final commentary, not only Weisser but a group like Gun Sense Chester County come across as an attempt to mainstream gun control in order to exclude the advocates of liberty. If the contest is between gun controllers and gun banners the banners will win. We will continue down the slippery slope until we lose our gun rights completely. Gun owners must stand firm and push for the end of all gun laws and gun control at all levels of government.

Since Weisser makes it clear that he's a lifetime NRA member, what's the NRA's opinion of this? Does Weisser represent the NRA's views?

Below is Weisser's presentation in its entirety:

Don't Let Gun Rights Haters Intimidate You

Terry Rumsey and Robin Lasersohn of Delaware County United For a Sensible Gun Policy [sic] telling us what they really want to do with guns.

I can hear many gun owners laughing saying “I not afraid of those gunless and gutless morons”, but it's not physical intimidation I'm talking about. Think about it. They can't use force to shut us up but many of us are intimidated into silence by their rhetoric.

A prime example came from Pres. Obama during CNN's “Guns in America”. They went to great lengths to mock those concerned that the government might one day try to disarm us. Why do this? Because they want to bury the fact that they've long been saying that they do indeed want to disarm us. (See here, here, here, here and here.) True that they aren't going to require turning in guns nor are they sending out SWAT teams to take guns from people but they are trying to implement an incremental disarmament strategy. Obama said he wants to “make progress” and “incrementally make things better” with his anti-gun rights diktats. He was talking about gradually disarming us. It is discussion of this strategy that they want to intimidate us out of.

Ayn Rand referred to it as the argument from intimidation. Here's how she summed it up:

The tone is usually one of scornful or belligerent incredulity. “Surely you are not an advocate of capitalism, are you?” And if this does not intimidate the prospective victim—who answers, properly: “I am,”—the ensuing dialogue goes something like this: “Oh, you couldn’t be! Not really!” “Really.” “But everybody knows that capitalism is outdated!” “I don’t.” “Oh, come now!” “Since I don’t know it, will you please tell me the reasons for thinking that capitalism is outdated?” “Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” “Will you tell me the reasons?” “Well, really, if you don’t know, I couldn’t possibly tell you!”

All this is accompanied by raised eyebrows, wide-eyed stares, shrugs, grunts, snickers and the entire arsenal of nonverbal signals communicating ominous innuendoes and emotional vibrations of a single kind: disapproval.

If those vibrations fail, if such debaters are challenged, one finds that they have no arguments, no evidence, no proof, no reasons, no ground to stand on—that their noisy aggressiveness serves to hide a vacuum—that the Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence.

In order to fool gun owners into accepting background checks and restrictions on the ownership, transfer, and transportation of guns they have to hide the real purpose of these measures. It's not about safety, Obama admitted they won't reduce crime during the clown show on CNN. To repeat, it's about gradually disarming us.

To restore our rights we're going to have to be mentally tough enough to stand up to gun rights haters. What Ludwig Von Mises wrote about economics applies to guns:

The enemy is not refuted: enough to unmask him as a bourgeois. Marxism criticizes the achievements of all those who think otherwise by representing them as the venal servants of the bourgeoisie. Marx and Engels never tried to refute their opponents with argument. They insulted, ridiculed, derided, slandered, and traduced them, and in the use of these methods their followers are not less expert. Their polemic is directed never against the argument of the opponent, but always against his person. Few have been able to withstand such tactics. Few indeed have been courageous enough to oppose Socialism with that remorseless criticism which it is the duty of the scientific thinker to apply to every subject of inquiry.

The answer is clear, since they want to bury the idea of incremental disarmament we have to have the courage to shout it from the roof tops. Bring it up anytime gun control is discussed. Whether it's in comments to online articles, letters to the editor, or opinion columns, bring up incremental disarmament. In online forums, bring up incremental disarmament. In face to face conversations, bring up incremental disarmament. In videos and television interviews, bring up incremental disarmament. Our gun rights and, therefore, our lives depend on it. Once again Ayn Rand:

How does one resist that Argument? There is only one weapon against it: moral certainty.

When one enters any intellectual battle, big or small, public or private, one cannot seek, desire or expect the enemy's sanction. Truth or falsehood must be one's sole concern and sole criterion of judgment—not anyone's approval or disapproval; and, above all, not the approval of those whose standards are the opposite of one's own.

The most illustrious example of the proper answer to the Argument from Intimidation was given in American history by the man who, rejecting the enemy's moral standards and with full certainty of his own rectitude, said: "If this be treason, make the most of it."

Islands, Churches, and Guns

Myself on a beach on Little Exuma, the Bahamas

This article is prompted by two things that happened recently. The first was a happy event, my vacation to the the Bahamas. The other the horrible shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. At first glance these two things may not seem related but the connection between them will soon be made clear.

As usual, a mass shooting like the one in Charleston brings out the gun rights haters who want to cynically use the blood of the victims to grease the skids for their gun control schemes. One hears and reads claim after nonsensical claim that if only we had less gun rights and fewer guns in the United States the victims would still be alive. Reality tells us something very different.

Unfortunately, while in the Bahamas I discovered that all is not well in paradise. During our visit a shooting happened at a school in Nassau. This sparked discussion in the local media that revealed that the Bahamas are on pace for a record number of murders this year after a substantial increase last year. How is this relevant to the US and gun control here? Because in the Bahamas they have strict gun control and way fewer guns per capita than we have here. Yet they die from gun shots at a much higher rate than Americans.

The lesson to be learned is clear and not the one gun rights haters would have us learn. Dreams of legislating away murder by outlawing guns is a dangerous fantasy. It will only lead to more violence as it doesn't address the causes of the problem. Until we start dealing with the social dynamics that drive crime the killing will continue both here and in the Bahamas.

This Is What Gun Control Looks Like: Shaneen Allen's New Jersey Ordeal (video)

It's great that Shaneen Allen is free and was able to share her story with us at a Citizens for Liberty meeting. I just couldn't post this video without commenting on her call for national reciprocity for state issued carry permits. She's in favor of them, I'm not. Here's why. National reciprocity is just more federal domination of the states. We have too much of that already.

The problem is states implementing gun control not a lack of federal laws on the subject. National reciprocity entrenches and legitimizes this state level tyranny while at the same time expanding federal power. Despite appearances it's step backwards for liberty. The answer is to repeal state laws about licensing and regulating guns. At the same time we need to end federal involvement with guns by abolishing agencies such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It's by this kind of limiting of government power that we protect our freedom.

Shaneen Allen's website:

http://www.shaneenallen.org/


Please read this article for commentary on national reciprocity:

The Concealed Carry Lie

 

 

Joshua Prince Mops the Floor With CeaseFirePA (video)

Attorney Joshua Prince makes a complete fool of CeaseFirePA's gun rights hating Shira Goodman. They're debating Pennsylvania's Act 192 which allows people to proactively sue municipalities which enact gun control laws in violation of the state's preemption statute. Enjoy!

The Professor's Reply to "Gun Rights Versus Anecdotes"

Below is the response to my article "Gun Rights Versus Anecdotes" from the retired professor whose mail prompted me to write said article. I'm publishing it unedited, in its entirety at his request.
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The International Libertarian

In the January 5, 2015 number of the International Libertarian, Darren Wolfe published what was essentially a response to me. I had mailed him a package of 49 pieces, mostly news articles from the Philadelphia Inquirer or The New York Times.

Having given a talk in a library about the brutality of tackle football about a year ago, I was in the audience when Darren followed me with a talk championing unrestricted, unregulated gun rights. I was the first member of the audience to offer objections to his position. I remember taking prompts from my notes of about 6 criticisms I wanted to offer. He was patient enough to hear half of them before he interrupted me and asked for other questions. I oppose his position and last winter decided to collect material for and against it, especially newspaper clippings. I had vague plans to write a paper, a paper suitable to be read at a conference of social philosophers, using that newspaper material and other scholarly sources. Before I retired from teaching philosophy in 2011, I had taught a philosophy of criminal justice course many times, and have or have easy access to all the scholarly material on gun rights that l might need to write my own piece about it.

My resolve to write that paper faded. On October 21st, 2014, I had open heart surgery, a triple bypass. By November I was recuperating slowly at home, and in the beginning of my recuperation, I had very little energy. It was in this state of physical weakness that I decided to use my news clippings in a way other than to write a philosophical paper. As I looked each over, I decided to use them to try to shake Darren’s confidence in his position. I chose articles in which some private citizen with a gun did something seriously harmful to an innocent victim. The sort of story I mailed Darren was like these: one small child shooting and killing another; someone shooting a neighbor’s dog as the neighbor watched; the 9 year old girl losing control of the Uzi she was firing and killing her instructor; the 2 year old killing his mother in a Walmart after finding the pistol in mom’s pocketbook; people shot to death simply because they lived in dangerous neighborhoods; suicides that only occurred because a gun was at hand, a gun that often was not the victim’s. I tried to choose the frequently occurring cases in which guns in the hands or houses of those who are not law enforcers do the harm, and cases in which the victims would not have avoided death by having their own guns at hand. Law enforcers often do good by using guns to stop occurring crimes of cruelty or oppression but, I well know that law enforcers, too, can become cruel oppressors with guns.

I mailed these clippings to Darren to challenge his claims that good results come from the freedom of all to have and carry guns. In the cases that I had sent him, I believe that there was not any gun-generated good, only pitiable or despicable harm. I sent them to him as one citizen to another and my only comment to him, in a handwritten note accompanying the articles, was that I, having had recent surgery, was sending him these articles to challenge him. I could have used them and other writings to do philosophy myself in creating my own argument from this material, and writing it out and sending it to him. But I did not. I was not contacting him as a philosophy teacher doing philosophy for students, colleagues, or the public, but as a citizen engaging another citizen on a personal level. He made it on a public level after asking my permission to do so.

I am offended that Darren, in “Gun Rights Versus Anecdotes,” judges me as a philosopher, and as a poor philosopher. He seems to believe that a better philosopher would have sent him “articles from [a] scholarly source.” Looking at my packet of materials, he remarks “One would expect better from [a] university professor.” But I am only a retired professor, and one who was without much energy after heart surgery, and one who then decided not to act like a philosopher, but only as a citizen. Had I been acting as a professional philosopher, I would have drawn my own conclusions from the materials, and stated them in writing for Darren. I would have supported my conclusions with references to court decisions, significant works of literature, scholarly books, and professional journals in which ethicists, social scientists, and political philosophers publish. But I was not acting as a philosopher and he should have realized this and treated me more fairly or kindly in responding in public to my personal and non-professional outreach to him.

Had I been acting in a professional and not a personal way, not only would I have written out the conclusions that I wanted him to reach from the materials, but I would have made copies of everything that I was mailing him. I was trusting him to treat me fairly, so I made no copies. Now, and in the future, I will copy and keep everything that I send him. Also, I have material that I could have copied and sent him, but that was work that I, as a convalescent, was trying to avoid.

Darren Wolfe’s piece argues that “more guns don’t mean more murder.” But my news clippings were often about shootings by guns that were killings but were not murders—accidents, suicides, guns fired from the hands of children, immature adults firing them.

In refuting the position that I would have argued for had I been writing like a philosopher or professor, Darren succeeds in not writing like one either. He claims that it is a “fact that guns in private hands prevent 2.5 million crimes each year.” This is certainly not a fact like “N number of crimes were committed last year according to FBI records.” Darren’s “fact” is a conclusion of a syllogism, and conclusions need premises and proof of the premises. But Darren does not tell us what the premises are from which this conclusion is alleged to follow. Nor does he tell the reader what the proofs are for each of these premises. My suspicion is that one of his premises is a highly speculative statement about how one knows that a crime has been prevented.

I would suggest that Darren’s non-aggression principle needs restatement. He says it is this: “It is immoral to initiate the use of force or the threat of force against peaceful people.” Force and aggression are not the same thing. A dentist uses force to pull a bad tooth in an innocent patient. The police officer’s pistol represents the threat of force to the demonstrators as she or he watches the angry demonstrators march by, and the threat of force represented by that pistol is often that which keeps the demonstrators innocent and “peaceful people.” And the implied threat of force against the demonstrators who are innocent people is, paradoxically, used by police protecting the demonstrators rights to petition for redress of their grievances.

Darren seems to use force as almost a dirty word. When he says “Freedom from force, liberty, is the only reasonable way forward” I take him to be defining liberty as freedom from force. But Darren quotes Frederick Bastiat in praise of U.S. law: “There is no country in the world where the law is kept more within its proper domain: the protection of every person’s liberty and property.” But laws must be enforced (en-force-d) to protect liberty and property. Courts enforce the enjoyment of rights, including gun rights, when they are wrongfully challenged, by ordering the police to use force. Unenforced law, unless it is backed by strong and usually ancient custom, is ineffective. Freedom needs force. A better definition of freedom or liberty is the ability to act without external impediment.

My news clippings were chosen to cause in Darren, in his words, “emotional reactions to horrible events.” I hoped that they would arouse a compassion in him so that he would see that far fewer guns in citizens’ hands in American society would mean far fewer horrible, newsworthy events. But Darren resists my push towards compassion by saying that “we, gun rights advocates, realize that reason is what must guide us not compassion.” The title of his response to me, “Gun Rights Versus Anecdotes” and his subtitle, “Which side wins depends on whether one can reason or simply react emotionally.” For Darren, “Unthinking, emotional reactions to horrible events will only make things worse.”

He here celebrates reason as good, and compassion and emotion as bad, and claims to be the champion of reason in this matter. However, my gift to him of the 40-some compassion-eliciting news clippings was precisely intended to invite him to reason about them. I was hoping that he would see that if he reasoned by induction, he would agree with me. Induction occurs when one reasons from particular to general upon examining many particulars. If in this particular case the presence of a gun in the hand of a private citizen or her relative led to this compassion-causing, horrible event, and also in a second case, and then also in a third, and a fourth, and a fifth and so on to a fortieth case, then a generalization follows. That generalization is that guns in the possession of private citizens are very dangerous to the innocent because they so often lead to the horrible events of injury and death. Since all decent men and women want to effectively prevent the injury and death of the innocent, one likely way is to pass and enforce laws keeping guns from the possession of private citizens.

Darren did not see that the emotion of compassion raised by the 40-some cases I sent him led through this reasoning to this conclusion. This seems to be why he belittled my abilities as a philosophy teacher in sending him only these articles: “One would expect better from [a] university professor” were his words. This remark seems to me to be an example of the logical fallacy of the abusive type of Argumentum ad Hominem. This fallacy ordinarily consists in attacking the abilities of one’s opponent rather than the opponent’s argument. In Darren’s way of committing this fallacy, he belittled my abilities to argue like a professor even though I made no arguments, but did challenge him to reason by induction. Still he believes that I should have done “better” than challenging him to see what generalization followed by induction from the anecdotes I asked him to examine. Since I left constructing the argument to him, and as a convalescent did not construct it myself, I was not obliged to do better. He was.

Using Gun Rights Haters Own Research Against Them

Easy to do with Robert Muggah, among many things the coauthor of “We Need Better Data for a Serious Gun Control Debate”, an article in which he advocates gun control despite the fact that he claims there isn't enough good data on the subject to even have a debate about it. A tad bias, wouldn't you agree? Could that be why gun rights advocates don't want such people doing research on crime and violence? But I digress, on October 8, 2014 he gave a talk at TEDGlobal 2014: South! in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil titled “How To Protect Fast-Growing Cities From Failing”:

In his talk he says a number of things that make clear that guns aren't the drivers of a high murder rate. Most importantly, he directly contradicts that major gun rights haters' argument when Dr. Muggah says that, “...when it comes to cities, the conversation is dominated by the North, that is, North America, Western Europe, Australia and Japan, where violence is actually at historic lows.”. He then drives home the point with:

What's more, we're seeing a dramatic reduction in homicide. Manuel Eisner and others have shown that for centuries, we've seen this incredible drop in murder, especially in the West. Most Northern cities today are 100 times safer than they were just 100 years ago.

These two facts -- the decline in armed conflict and the decline in murder -- are amongst the most extraordinary, if unheralded, accomplishments of human history, and we should be really excited, right?

That drop in murder rates includes the United States with all its guns. The slide from his presentation below clearly shows the US to be in the same low murder rate category as western Europe. So much for the lie that the US is a very dangerous place!
 

Dr. Muggah goes on to talk about social and demographic factors that that drive violence, all the while making the gun rights advocates' case for us. Not once does he say that the availability of guns is the cause of the violence. He ends his talk with this:

There is nothing inevitable about lethal violence, and we can make our cities safer. Folks, we have the opportunity of a lifetime to drop homicidal violence in half within our lifetime. So I have just one question: What are we waiting for?

Yes, gun rights haters, what are you waiting for to stop worshiping the false god of gun control and start facing the real causes of the violence problem?

Countering Gun Rights Haters on the Street and in the Press

This video of me blasting universal background checks is what readers first see when they land on the Delaware County Daily Times article “Gun rights activists, gun control advocates face off over background checks” about the Saturday, June 28, 2014 competing rallies. Gun rights haters can't be happy about that.

Before the rallies the Delaware County Daily Times published “Demonstrations slated to address gun rights, control” which is fairly even in its coverage. Gun rights haters started with a walk from Chester, PA to their rallying point in Media, PA. We held an Open Carry Counter Rally For Gun Rights at an intersection near their rally.

The best shot the Delaware County Daily Times could take at gun rights was this editorial, “Statistics vary, but gun violence doesn't” that is so lame as to be laughable. Just repeating the same tired old clichés and appeals to emotion it was easily debunked in the comments section.

We also got coverage from the local NBC affiliate channel 10 in Philadelphia. That short report isn't online but did accurately state both sides views.

Also not online was my interview a few days before the rally with local, conservative radio talk show host Dom Giordano. While Dom is staunchly pro-gun rights he wasn't favorable to open carrying at the rally. Fortunately, most of the callers were. It was a nice, friendly, and supportive interview.

The only real media hit piece about our rally was from the Chester Spirit, a small,

left leaning, and very anti-gun rights publication based in Chester, PA. Chester is a poor, crime ridden town that has lost half of its population since its peak in 1950. The article “Gun fight: Delco residents face off over gun rights and access” tells a strange lie. “Both groups came face-to-face at the intersection of Route 252 and Baltimore Pike and the interaction remained peaceful, despite both sides being passionate about their stances.” No, we deliberately moved across the street from the marchers path before they were even in sight. We remained silent as they passed. There were no threats or insults from us and the police at no time intervened except to block traffic so the march could pass unimpeded through the intersection.

Enewsletters from the gun rights hating groups were rather amusing. One claimed that “...we were met first by a contingent of 75 or so pro-gun extremists, some openly carrying handguns or assault weapons, kept at bay by police.” [emphasis added]. A blatant lie about people who were complimented by the police with the words “good job” for getting out of the way without being asked to do so. What the gun rights haters don't get is that we support and protect everyone's right to express their views. Even people like them who want to trample gun rights and routinely insult us for trying to reach out to them. Here is video proof that we got out of their way and didn't insult them:

 
Of course, the organizers of the gun rights hating walk & rally had to lie and falsely claim credit for things remaining civil:

Our walkers displayed courage and strong spirit when passing by 75-100 armed counter-demonstrators gathered at Baltimore Pike and Rt. 252. Singing the civil rights anthem, “We Shall Overcome,” our contingent avoided confrontation with opponents and remained focused on the purpose of the walk.

Let's translate that into reality. The marchers are said to be showing “...courage and strong spirit ...” at the point in their march that they were safest. The open carriers would have protected the marchers had someone tried to attack them. “...our contingent avoided confrontation with opponents and remained focused on the purpose of the walk.” This really means their leadership once again succeeded in keeping their flock from talking to us and risking learning the truth about guns and gun rights. At their rally point at the Providence Friends Meeting House they guarded the entrances to keep us off the property.


 On another note, the same email as above stated:

Staff members from the offices of U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (R) and U.S. Congressmen Robert Brady (D) and Patrick Meehan (R) read statements of support for legislation that would establish universal background checks on gun sales.

Republicans for gun control, go figure.

To wrap up, the counter rally was a great success for a number of reasons. Most importantly it got our message out in the media. What negative press we got was more than compensated for by the even and accurate coverage that was more prominent.

Another success was that we once again proved that guns don't cause crime. There were more guns than ever in Media the day of the rally and it still hasn't seen a murder since 2005. The gun rights haters were once again proved wrong.

Lastly, we did have a chance to talk to a few people from the other side. Hopefully, these conversations will be the beginning of them understanding the harm gun control causes and why we need guns in the peoples' hands.

Some of the signs carried by gun rights supporters:

 

 

 

 

 

Open Carry Brunch

We had a successful and friendly open carry Sunday brunch at the Court Diner in Media, PA. The event was lead by Mark Fiorino whose arrest by Philadelphia Police sparked outrage. Below is my interview with him. We talked about open carry both here and in Texas where it has generated much controversy.

Below is a picture of all the open carriers who attended. Thanks for the great time but especially thanks for standing up for liberty!

Know The Enemy of Liberty: the National Rifle Association

Oppressors Not Protectors

With the release of the first episode of the Defending Our America series titled “Know Your Enemies and Know Yourself” the National Rifle Association (NRA) puts itself at the forefront of the shills for tyranny and empire. Please watch the first episode and the season preview. They advocate police power to fight the war on drugs, police power to secure the borders, and military power to fight Islam overseas. In other words, they advocate for the very things that are destroying our liberties. Not once in either video do we hear the words liberty or freedom.

The war on drugs has lead to the destruction of the right to privacy and property. It is driving the militarization of the police enabling Commando style raids that now happen over one-hundred times a day in the United States. Sometimes they are based on nothing more than the word of an informant. Sometimes they are to serve a warrant on a non-violent person. Asset forfeiture has police forces becoming predators seeking out the maximum take with little or no due process. Law enforcement has become the standing army many Founders warned us not to have. The war on drugs keeps the money flowing to the law enforcement establishment.

“Securing” the massive southern border of the US is a pointless and impossible task. In the process of attempting it the government is building up a police state characterized by checkpoints, warrantless searches, and other intrusive controls. We need the governments permission just to work now that they've made it illegal to hire undocumented workers and implemented e-verify. This is another form of tyranny that keeps money flowing to the law enforcement establishment.

Fighting Islam is a farce designed to keep money following into the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned was taking over. It furnishes an excuse to keep taxes and government debt high. “...armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instrument for bringing the many under the domination of the few.” is how James Madison put it.

Follow the money. It comes as no surprise that the series is sponsored by Sig Sauer a supplier of weapons to law enforcement and the military. It is obviously important to Sig Sauer that the people support the gravy train they're riding. Hey, who cares about liberty when there's government money to be had?

If my words aren't enough to convince you perhaps you'll listen to Patrick Henry. He warned of the dangers lurking in the constitution, the very document the videos advocate defending. Below are selected, relevant excerpts from Henry's speech arguing against adoption of the constitution titled “Shall Liberty or Empire Be Sought?”:

A standing army we shall have, also, to execute the execrable commands of tyranny; and how are you to punish them? Will you order them to be punished? Who shall obey these orders? Will your mace-bearer be a match for a disciplined regiment?

When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: liberty, sir, was then the primary object...by that spirit we have triumphed over every difficulty. But now, sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation, is about to convert this country into a powerful and mighty empire.

But, sir, we are not feared by foreigners; we do not make nations tremble. Would this constitute happiness, or secure liberty? I trust, sir, our political hemisphere will ever direct their operations to the security of those objects.

It is on a supposition that your American governors shall be honest, that all the good qualities of this government are founded; but its defective and imperfect construction puts it in their power to perpetrate the worst of mischiefs, should they be bad men; and, sir, would not all the world...blame our distracted folly in resting our rights upon the contingency of our rulers being good or bad? Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty! I say that the loss of that dearest privilege has ever followed, with absolute certainty, every such mad attempt.

Now that we clearly see that the NRA is wholly behind the powerful government that we have to just trust and hope will not oppress

us it is time to turn our backs on that vile organization. Don't let the Siren song of patriotism fool you. Stand for liberty, not the empire and its police state!

John Lott Destroys Gun Rights Haters in a Debate (video)

What a hidden gem! This is an unlisted video of a gun rights debate. The clowns at UC Berkeley must not have liked that John Lott destroyed the gun grabbers. For anyone going into a debate or discussion of the issue this is must watch!

Fun With Guns, Hate Mail, and Debates at an Open Carry Rally (video)

Darren Wolfe spoke at the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and Open Carry Rally (https://www.facebook.com/events/419981851437137/) in Norristown, PA. First, I read hilarious hate mail. After explaining that progressivism is making society unstable I issued a challenge to the gun rights haters to debate.

See the text of the hate mail and presentation that generated it at: There Is No Case for Gun Control (video and hate mail)

There Is No Case for Gun Control (video and hate mail)

My presention at the Democracy Unplugged Forum Sampler 2 (https://www.facebook.com/events/574562119280696/)

Of course, you know you've hit the nail on the head when you get this kind of anger back:

Democracy Unplugged Gun Control Debate: Guns in America After Sandy Hook (video)

One of several guns at the debate. As expected no one was shot that night.

The Panelists:

David Jahn, Former Chair of the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania

John Linder, Mayor of Chester, Pennsylvania; Member - Mayors Against Illegal Guns

Bryan Miller, Executive director - Heeding God's Call; Former Executive Director - Ceasefire New Jersey

Tom Nelson, Member - National Rifle Association - Pink Pistols Delaware Valley

The video of the debate: