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The Knox Update

Holder Reminiscent of Mikva

The Knox Update

From the Firearms Coalition

 

Who’s Haunted now?

 

By Jeff Knox

 

(January 29, 2009) When Barack Obama announced that he intended to nominate Eric Holder to be his Attorney General, we at The Firearms Coalition launched an aggressive campaign to block the appointment and urged all other Second Amendment organizations to do likewise.  Holder was Janet Reno’s top deputy in the Clinton administration and has proven himself to be a radical opponent to the rights of firearms owners.  Holder has not only testified before Congress in support of expanded restrictions on firearms ownership, he signed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in DC v. Heller in which he espoused the theory that the Second Amendment’s “right of the people to keep and bear arms” is actually a right of the states to organize militias.  Someone with such twisted opinions about the Constitution should not even be considered for the position of Attorney General.

 

 

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The Knox Update

Offensive Defense?

The Knox Update

From the Firearms Coalition

 

Offensive Defense?

 

By Jeff Knox

 

(December 29, 2008)  The repercussions from Hurricane Katrina continue to roll in like the tidal surge that flooded New Orleans.  The latest storm takes aim at guns and gunowners.  As news trickles out of a final resolution in the lawsuits filed over the government’s illegal confiscation of firearms during the days after the flood, new reports of unprovoked attacks on African-Americans by white, neighborhood militias during the storm’s aftermath are beginning to surface.  In a feature article in the liberal magazine “The Nation,” titled “Katrina’s Hidden Race War,” writer A. C. Thompson suggests that a group organized to provide security for the Algiers Point neighborhood actually engaged in open warfare against unarmed, innocent blacks trying to reach an evacuation point on the other side of the neighborhood.  In the article, Thompson combines first-person accounts of the victims of one attack, the statements of members of the neighborhood security group, African-American residents of the Algiers Point neighborhood, records from area hospitals, the coroner’s office, and generous helpings of hearsay and speculation to suggest that members of the security group engaged in racially motivated murder.

 

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The Knox Update

Block Holder

The Knox Update

From the Firearms Coalition

 

Block Holder

 

By Jeff Knox

 

(December 18, 2008)  Barack Obama’s nomination of Eric Holder to be the Attorney General demands an immediate and unequivocal response from gunowners and rights advocates and that response should be “Absolutely Not!”

Holder’s appointment to be AG must be approved by the Senate.  While it is highly unlikely that opponents could muster the 51 votes needed to reject Holder’s appointment, a single Senator can place a “hold” on the confirmation and effectively lock up the system just as Democrats did with a number of President Bush’s judicial appointments and the appointment of John Bolton to be Ambassador to the UN.  Once a “Hold” has been placed, a supermajority of 60 votes is required to break the hold.  With enough vocal opposition to Holder’s confirmation, Obama could be forced to withdraw the nomination and select someone else to be his AG.  Even if opponents cannot successfully block Holder’s appointment, a strong and concerted effort to do so will go far toward warning the Obama administration and the new Congress against trying to interfere with the rights of Americans to own guns.

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The Knox Update

The Siege of Mumbai

The Knox Update

From the Firearms Coalition

 

The Siege of Mumbai

 

Madmen Serve As Models For Fanatics

 

By Chris Knox

 

(December 11, 2008) Last month, as we Americans celebrated our Thanksgiving, many of us missed or were only vaguely aware of a dramatic and horrifying story that unfolded on the other side of the globe.  A band of at least nine terrorists took a ship from Pakistan, somehow transferred to an inflatable boat in Indian waters, and just after nightfall, came ashore at the Gateway of India, a British-built stone monument in the harbor of Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay).  From the harbor, it was a fifteen-minute walk to their targets. 

Over the next two hours, they hit ten locations: a train station, a Jewish community center, a hospital.  Terror squad members finally dug in at a pair of posh hotels and the Jewish community center.  Armed with automatic rifles and grenades, the terrorists targeted Jews and Americans, but were content to waste as many innocent lives as possible as they launched on a three-day rampage.  “They weren’t aiming at anyone in particular. It was like they wanted to empty their magazines and do as much damage here as possible before heading to the Taj [Mahal Hotel],” said one witness.  Over the three-day siege fewer than a dozen modestly trained, but determined terrorists killed almost 200 people and paralyzed a great city.

Pictures from photographer Sebastian D’Souza, show fresh-faced kids dressed like Western college students sauntering along firing into terrorized crowds.  D’Souza captured an image of two of the murderers seemingly engaged in a calm conversation beneath a billboard advertising tea.  “WAKE UP!” says the billboard headline.  Indeed.  D’Sousa later said that he wished he had a gun instead of a camera.

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The Knox Update

Ignorance is Bliss-tering

The Knox Report

From the Firearms Coalition

Ignorance is Bliss — Until the Pain Begins

 

By Jeff Knox

 

(November 20, 2008) The reality of the November 4 elections is beginning to settle in and the more people learn about the choices they’ve made, the more concerned they become.  It turns out that the McCain campaign’s “Celebrity” commercial was spot-on; Barack Obama was famous for being famous and the masses failed to look behind the curtain or into the promises.  What Alan Korwin calls the “lame-stream media” was complicit in the charade as they fawned over Obama and the Democrats while trashing McCain, Palin, the Republicans in Congress, and George W. Bush.  The two major parties were also complicit as they have locked up the election process and locked out many highly qualified and worthwhile candidates and ideas.  But in the end, it all comes down to the American people and how much attention and consideration they are giving to the health of The Republic. 

The simple fact is that the vast majority of citizens pay absolutely no attention to matters of politics and a good percentage of the rest pay only superficial attention.  Gunowners turn out for elections at about the same rate as non-gunowners and often have little or no idea about the candidates’ positions on firearms issues.  While millions of serious “gun-people” buy Shotgun News and other gun publications almost religiously, many of them never even look at the “political columns” like this one and choose to remain oblivious to the erosion of their rights and the threats certain political philosophies represent.

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The Knox Update

Impending Doom

The Knox Report

From the Firearms Coalition

 

Impending Doom

Is the sky really falling?

 

By Jeff Knox

 

(November 11, 2008) Two years ago I wrote a couple of articles describing the composition of the Congress after the mid-term elections and explaining that I didn’t expect to see the new Democrat majority making any kind of serious run at gun rights.  I caught a lot of flak for those predictions.  A few people publicly declared me to be naïve, misguided, or just too stupid to understand the “nature of politics,” which they described as an adversarial system of winners reaping rewards and exacting revenge by pillaging their enemies and ramming through their radical agendas.  According to my critics, the “supposedly pro-gun Democrats” would jump when Nancy Pelosi cracked her whip and that said whip cracking would commence at any moment.  They said that “assault weapons”, .50 caliber rifles, and private sales at gun shows – the “gun show loophole” – would all be history within a year and that if I couldn’t see all of this writing on the wall, I was much too myopic to be a professional gun rights activist, and so on.

Some might have noticed the fact that none of those things has come to pass.  As both brother Chris and I have said, the Democrats remember 1994 and are loath to jeopardize their majorities chasing what has clearly become a failed social policy.  The usual suspects put forward their standard fare of anti-rights legislation and it all languished in committees, never to be seriously debated nor brought to vote.  The Tiahrt Amendment was reauthorized against the strenuous objections of Mike Bloomberg and Sarah Brady, a NICS “improvement” bill passed only because NRA supported it, and a last-minute D.C. relief bill was allowed to pass out of the House (with the understanding that it would die in the Senate) so Democrats could claim they had voted pro-rights before the election.  Even a major firearms-related tragedy – the Virginia Tech massacre – generated no serious moves toward new restrictions.

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The Knox Update

Drawing Lines

The Knox Report

From the Firearms Coalition

 

Where’s Your Line?

It’s hard to draw in shifting sand.

 

By Jeff Knox

 

(November 4, 2008)  Last week in this space I painted with a broad brush and general terms on the topic of armed revolt.  The trouble with speaking in broad, general terms is that the author’s general intent and the reader’s general perception can turn out to be pretty far apart – generally speaking.  That causes unnecessary conflict and is just sloppy writing.  I’ll try to do better.  In this installment I’d like to try to clear up a few things and hopefully get you thinking about what matters to you.

First, about last week’s column:

In no way did I intend to suggest that anyone who quotes Jefferson or wears a “MOLON LAVE” T-shirt is just guff and bluster.  I quote Jefferson and wear a “MOLON LAVE” T-shirt and I’m absolutely serious about them.  I know I’m not alone in that.  I think that sending that message loud and clear to the powers that be is very important and useful.

My suggestion that 99.995% of the time the slogan will be removed before it is lived up to was intended as hyperbole, but when you consider the thousands of people whose gun rights are temporarily or permanently revoked each week by traffic cops, divorce courts, and criminal indictments, that figure might not really be that far off.

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The Knox Update

Mutual Assured Destruction

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The Knox Report

From the Firearms Coalition

 

Mutual Assured Destruction

The power is in the threat, not the execution

 

By Jeff Knox

 

(October 29, 2008)  There are some who are fond of repeating Jefferson’s comment about the tree of liberty needing to be “refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” though they often skip the part about patriots and choose to only include the tyrants.  The problem is that in actual practice you couldn’t leave out, “the blood of patriots,” because when the blood of tyrants is spilt, the blood of patriots must also be spilt.  There is simply no way around it. 

The same guys are often fond of bumper sticker slogans like, “…from my cold dead fingers,” and the more erudite, “MOLON LAVE,” and while I can appreciate the sentiment, I also know that in 99.995% of cases it’s simply not true.  The fact is that only those who have nothing to lose (and nothing to live for) are willing to give up everything – including their lives – in a symbolic gesture of defiance.  The rest of us, those with families – kids, grand-kids, vulnerable parents – and homes, jobs, and lives, are not interested in ditching the house, refrigerator, and HD-TV in exchange for a prison cell or a mountain cave.

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The Knox Update

A Front Sight Experience

The Knox Report

From the Firearms Coalition

 

The Front Sight Experience

 

By Jeff Knox

 

            (September 30, 2008)  After four days, over 700 rounds fired and at least 2000 presentations from the holster, the folks at Front Sight Firearms Academy outside Las Vegas asked me what I thought of their four-day Defensive Handgun course.  I told them that I was impressed.  I have been shooting for over 40 years.  I’ve shot and trained with some of the most prominent firearms experts in the world, and I’ve been carrying and competing with the same Colt Combat Commander for over 24 years, but even with all of that experience, I learned a lot in 4 days at Front Sight.

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The Knox Update

Concealed Carry: Stack the Salami

The Knox Report

From the Firearms Coalition

 

Concealed Carry:  Stack the Salami

 

By Chris Knox

(October 14, 2008) Most of us are familiar with the “salami” illustration – the analogy of gun owners losing our freedoms one tiny piece at a time like a salami being sliced extra thin.  With each oh-so-reasonable “first step” our rights are gradually diminished.  What enables that “salami” strategy is that the other side is smarter than we are – they are willing to take what they can get, and when that doesn’t “work” they use it as evidence that more is needed.  Meanwhile many in our movement look for a total repeal of existing gun laws and consider acceptance of anything less to be the rankest compromise of principle.

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