The “Pacifist” Advocates of Violence Lie Again

Do the anti-gun rights zealots really think that people are so stupid they'll fall for these lies? Given what Shira Goodman wrote in “Gun Bullies Back Down and Plan to Stay Away from Peaceful Gun Violence Prevention Event” they must. Let's take her article apart piece by piece. (Items in bold are quotes from the article linked above.)

Concerned Gun Owners of Pennsylvania made clear in their press release that “CGOPA has canceled their counter-rallying on Sunday out of respect for private property rights and the sanctity of God's church.” They did this after CeasefirePA and their collaborators were run out of Doylestown, PA and had to relocate to a church in a nearby town.

“...CeaseFirePA, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and local groups like Bucks Safe are hosting a peaceful event to greet the Sandy Hook Riders Team 26,...” Quite true, the event is peaceful, but what violence are they calling for? Read on.

“... a group of cyclists riding in memory of the victims of gun violence prevention...” Interesting that they published this. We're the ones advocating gun rights, they're the ones whose “gun violence prevention” is disarming decent people preventing them from defending themselves. I guess that makes their mourning appropriate. (Since they will no doubt correct this typo a screen shot is included below as proof of their sloppiness.)

“...and calling for stronger gun laws.” Last I checked laws are enforced by armed people with jails to confine other people in. An interesting position for alleged pacifists to take. They seem to be all for non-violence until is is time to disarm peaceful people like us activist gun owners. Then the violence and bullying become OK. Here's how I put it in my coverage of their two state May 11, 2013 event:

There is a reason we stayed in Pennsylvania. We knew we couldn't go into Trenton, New Jersey (where their rally started) with our guns. The police would have arrested us. Even in Morrisville the township threatened to arrest open carriers. We ignored those threats and they backed down. Yet somehow the gun haters saw themselves as being threatened. The fear was totally irrational. The open carriers would have protected them had a criminal tried to harm them. Meanwhile, it is they, the gun haters, that want to send armed law enforcement officers after gun owners. Go figure.

“For the last week, pro-gun organization Concerned Gun Owners of America had been planning a counter-protest and blatantly trying to intimidate supporters to avoid this event.” No, it was the Concerned Gun Owners of Pennsylvania that was holding the counter-protest. Obviously accuracy isn't Ms. Goodman's forte.

“Members of the group took to social media posting plans to carry firearms and shout through megaphones at the peaceful gathering, but [we] were not intimidated.” Intimidated? Please, Ms. Goodman, post any threats of violence that were made against your group. I know you won't because there were none. As opposed to your group which advocates legal violence against us. Regardless, please don't lie, the counter-protest was going to be empty holster since guns aren't allowed in or near schools. (They originally were going to rally at Central Bucks West High School.) We already know that these gun rights haters have an irrational fear of guns. Are they now afraid of empty holsters too?

“...bullies try to intimidate people because they’re insecure.” I couldn't agree more. We libertarians live by the non-aggression principle. The idea is that it is immoral to initiate the use of force or threaten the use of force against others. We have the confidence to say we will not use violence or threats nor will we tolerate that kind of behavior against ourselves or others. I call on all gun rights haters to renounce their advocacy of violence and join with us in calling for a world in which no one aggresses against anyone else.

Lastly, I issue a challenge to Ms. Goodman and the others standing with her to debate the issue with me. If you really think you know what you're talking about we'll be debating soon.

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:

Defending Gun Rights With Civil Disobedience

NJ Second Amendment Society

The gun owners of New Jersey have had enough! They’ve tried asking for their rights, they’ve tried protesting in the streets. It’s not working. The tyrants in Trenton are going to take their gun rights away regardless. Seeing that “There *IS* no redress of our LEGITIMATE grievances within the three branches of NJ government.” The New Jersey Second Amendment Society has announced the start of a campaign of civil disobedience. “In a SINCERE effort to avoid an unhappy outcome, we must attempt to reach the public through acts of non-violent civil disobedience. This is not easy and it will take time, but the alternative at this point is much less attractive.” They are right and deserve our support.

At first glance the idea of civil disobedience and guns may seem like an unlikely mixture, but the opposite is the truth. Choosing non-violent resistance when one could resist violently is the essence of Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy:

Exercise of non-violence requires far greater bravery than that of swordsmanship. Cowardice is wholly inconsistent with non-violence. Translation from swordsmanship to non-violence is possible and, at times, even an easy stage. Non-violence, therefore, presupposes ability to strike. It is a conscious deliberate restraint put upon one's desire for vengeance.

Gun owners choosing not to use their guns aggressively or preemptively is the bravest (and smartest) way they can resist the government’s tyranny. This is fully consistent with the non-aggression principle, which, unlike Gandhi’s Satyagraha, allows for defensive force. It is often wiser to refrain from fighting even when defensive force is morally justified. The Deacons for Defense and Justice exemplify this approach. During the civil rights movement they carried weapons for defense while working non-violently for change. Rarely did they fire a weapon yet they prevented many an attack on civil rights activists.

There is also the passive side, don’t help the oppressor. Make him carry your weight instead of the other way around. In 1849 Henry David Thoreau called for peaceful resistance to oppose the injustices of slavery and the Mexican War. After being jailed for not paying taxes he wrote “Civil Disobedience”. In it he stated:

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. The proper place today, the only place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is in her prisons, …the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor. If any think that their influence would be lost there, and their voices no longer afflict the ear of the State, that they would not be as an enemy within its walls, they do not know by how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person ... A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight …If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible. If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as one has done, "But what shall I do?" my answer is, "If you really wish to do anything, resign your office." When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished.

Lastly, the hardest part, suffering injustice to hold the moral high ground and destroy the legitimacy of the tyrants. Show the world the evil that they really are. In 1819 Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote the poem “The Mask of Anarchy” * about the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester, England. His words were an inspiration to Gandhi and the Indians during their non-violent struggle for independence. The mask is the false, benevolent face the government puts on. Their own violence removes the mask. During the massacre the British government used cavalry to attack a peaceful assembly. Some excerpts:

 'Tis to see the Tyrant's crew
Ride over your wives and you -
Blood is on the grass like dew.

'Then it is to feel revenge
Fiercely thirsting to exchange
Blood for blood - and wrong for wrong -
Do not thus when ye are strong.

[Snip]

'Let a great Assembly be
Of the fearless and the free
On some spot of English ground
Where the plains stretch wide around.

[Snip]

'Be your strong and simple words
Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
And wide as targes let them be,
With their shade to cover ye.

'Let the tyrants pour around
With a quick and startling sound,
Like the loosening of a sea,
Troops of armed emblazonry.

Let the charged artillery drive
Till the dead air seems alive
With the clash of clanging wheels,
And the tramp of horses' heels.

'Let the fixèd bayonet
Gleam with sharp desire to wet
Its bright point in English blood
Looking keen as one for food.


'Let the horsemen's scimitars
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars
Thirsting to eclipse their burning
In a sea of death and mourning.

'Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war,

'And let Panic, who outspeeds
The career of armèd steeds
Pass, a disregarded shade
Through your phalanx undismayed.

[Snip]

'And if then the tyrants dare
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew, -
What they like, that let them do.

'With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.

'Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.

[Snip]

'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.'

 Stand firm, New Jersey gun owners, actively and peacefully resisting liberty’s enemies. If you do this fearlessly and with unbreakable wills you will prevail.

*As a libertarian anarchist I don’t like the way Shelley uses the word anarchy. I would have preferred the word chaos instead. Regardless, the poem is powerful, moving, and inspiring. I highly recommend reading and studying the whole thing.

Gun Rights, Peace, and Liberty (video)

Darren Wolfe talks about peace, liberty, gun rights, and security from the point of view of arming the people to protect themselves while disarming the government. The talk was based on his opening statement at the Greater Philadelphia Thinking Society (http://www.meetup.com/thinkingsociety/events/88133332/) sponsored gun control debate where he took the pro-gun side. The speech was delivered at the End the Fed/ End the Wars rally
(https://www.facebook.com/events/443568162351325/) in Philadelphia, PA on November 24, 2012.

Trenton Marshals Interrogate Jury Rights Advocates; Hundreds of Pamphlets Distributed

May 10, 2010 — This week Julian Heicklen is expanding his jury rights pamphleteering tour to New Jersey, and multiple locations in Pennsylvania and Delaware. Today Jim Babb and George Donnelly joined him at the federal district courthouse in Trenton, New Jersey. They were only minimally hassled and managed to hand out 200 pamphlets before retiring to lunch. Tomorrow they'll be in Reading and Allentown, PA. More at: http://georgedonnelly.com/libertarian...