Chris's Blog

A Setback on Holder: Hatch Endorses

Orrin Hatch, the senior Senator from Utah and long-time member of the Judiciary Committee stuck a stinger in us today.  According to The Hill, a capital newspaper,

Hatch said that Republicans should try to strike a cooperative tone with President-elect Obama during the first days of his administration.

“I start with the premise that the president deserves the benefit of the doubt. I don’t think politics should be played with the attorney general,” he said.

“I like Barack Obama and want to help him if I can.”

Read the entire article here. If nothing else it's troubling that Senator Hatch would announce a position without even listening to the facts, or even a discussion.  If you're in Utah, Senator Hatch needs to hear from you.

 

 

Jeff's Blog

Hatch Slaps Gunowners – Again

   Utah Republican Orin Hatch, the former Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee betrayed gunowners and his own party today by declaring to The Hill newspaper that he is going to support confirmation of Eric Holder for Attorney General.  Other Republicans on the committee have expressed concern over some of Holder's actions and positions and have promised serious questions in the hearings scheduled for Thursday and Friday.  By declaring support before any questions are asked or answered, Hatch proves that he is more concerned about politics than facts.  Previously, committee chairman Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, had "promised" that Holder would be confirmed.  Such a promise is pure partisan politics on Leahy's part and should be roundly criticized as such by the media.  I'm not holding my breath.

   I intend to be on the phone first thing in the morning to Hatch's office denouncing his betrayal and calling for him to retract his statement.  I encourage others to do likewise.  The position of Attorney General is simply too important to allow it to be filled without question by a proven Democrat lackey.

Jeff's Blog

Congress Fires First Shot

H.R. 45 Filed on First Day

   Representative Bobby Rush (D-IL) filed a comprehensive anti-gun wish-list bill in the 111th Congress on its first day in session.  No sooner were the new members of Congress sworn in than Mr. Rush, a former Black Panther leader, file his bill which he calls the "Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009".  The bill has no cosponsors and was automatically referred to the House Judiciary Committee.

   If passed, this bill would require that anyone wishing to purchase, own, or possess a "qualifying firearm" – that's any handgun, and any long gun capable of accepting a detachable magazine – would have to be licensed by the state or the federal government in a licensing program managed by the Attorney General.  To get a license you would have to prove you're you, provide a passport-style photo, a thumbprint, and take a written exam which includes questions about firearms safety, safe storage, the risks of firearms ownership, and anything else the Attorney General deems appropriate.   All transfers would be required to go through a licensed dealer with the exception of occasional gifts or bequests between parents, children (18 or over), and grandparents, or loans of not more than 30 days between "persons who are personally known to one another." (It actually says that.  I'm not making this up.)  And all transfers would have to be recorded in a "Transfer Record" established and maintained by the Attorney General.

Continue reading Congress Fires First Shot →

Jeff's Blog

Knox on Gun Talk

Jeff Knox on "Gun Talk"

(Sunday, January 11, 2009) I appeared on Tom Gresham's Gun Talk Radio today. Chris also paid a brief visit.  To the Gun Talk listeners visiting for the first time, welcome!  We appreciate the visit.  While you're here you may be interested in subscribing to our FCAlerts List by following this link. It's a low volume, high content bulletin, not a chat list.  When things are active we have sent out as many as two or three brief alerts in a single day, but when things are quiet, so are we.  We treat your personal information as confidential and promise never to share it with anyone.

We also want to invite folks to sample our bi-monthly newsletter, the Knox Hard Corps Report by simply dropping a note with your name and mailing address to Info@FirearmsCoalition.org

For those who missed the show, you can listen to an archive or download a podcast at Tom's web site by clicking, Tom Gresham's Gun Talk®.  

States

Almost Final Push Against Holder!

Holder Hearings Thursday and Friday; Call Call Call!

    The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Holder's confirmation are Thursday and Friday, the 15th and 16th.  Opposition to Holder’s confirmation continues to grow and we need it to reach a crescendo Right Now.  The Firearms Coalition has received confirmation from Gun Owners of America that they have sent out an alert urging their members to get involved and they are actively seeking to testify at the hearing.  Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has also spoken out against Holder’s confirmation.  The Heritage Foundation has illuminated some additional skeletons in Mr. Holder’s closet and numerous grassroots Second Amendment, privacy rights, and other liberty focused organizations have joined in the call for Barack Obama to withdraw Holder’s name from consideration or for the Senate to reject the nomination.

   Beginning Monday we need to flood the Senate Judiciary Committee members with calls and e-mails.  We want to generate a wave of objection which hits the committee members before the hearing so here is what we’re asking you to do:

ACTION  ITEM:

   1. Whether you have already done so or not, write e-mail messages to every member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and to your two senators and send those messages at least once Every Day from now until the hearing on Thursday.  It can be the same or a different message each day, that doesn't really matter, but be sure to make your position clear in the "Subject" line; something like "No Holder," "Reject Holder," or "Oppose Holder" should be in the subject line of every e-mail because it is likely to be all that the staffer stuck on e-mail duty will read before jotting a hash-mark in the "Opposed" column of a tally-sheet and moving to the next message.  Messages themselves should be short and clear, something like: “Dear Senator, Reject the nomination of Eric Holder for Attorney General.  He has demonstrated a serious lack of understanding of, and respect for the Constitution of the US and is an exceedingly poor choice for the office.”

    2. Place phone calls to all of the committee members and your two senators on Tuesday during your lunch period.  If your time is limited, prioritize; call the Republicans on the committee first, then the Democrats, then your own two senators.  If you run out of time, you run out of time, but make as many calls as you can. (Set the alarm in your cell phone to remind you.  Go ahead set it now; I'll wait.)

    3. Copy this call to action and re-post it on every blog, forum, and bulletin board you can find.

 Contact information for the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee can be found here:

http://akeyboardanda45.blogspot.com/2009/01/contacting-senate-judiciary-committee.html

or go through the comittee web site at:

http://judiciary.senate.gov/about/members.cfm 

    Senators use web forms rather than e-mail and writing to them is notnearly as easy as it should be, but it is notreally all that difficult either.  Some Senators make it even more difficult by blocking direct links into their web forms and not putting their contact information in a prominent place on their web site.  Please persevere and make sure that they get your message.

   While it is extremely unlikely that we can muster enough votes to block this appointment in a straight up or down vote, we should definitely be able to generate enough support to stage a long filibuster and draw attention to Mr. Holder’s shortcomings.  Once Holder’s record is before the public and his credibility put in question, it is likely that he will withdraw from consideration (at the quiet request of Mr. Obama) and another name will be offered.

Continue reading Almost Final Push Against Holder! →

Chris's Blog

Arizona Washington’s Birthday Match

Son Brandon and I are planning to shoot in the upcoming Washington's Birthday Match next month.  George Washington with M14The venerable match has been going on here in Arizona for the past 116 years making it one of  if not the oldest continuously run military rifle match in the country. 

The match is organized with four-man teams each shooting a relay.  Brandon and I are half a team.  If you want to squad up with us, I'll take the first two responders.  If somebody else wants to put a couple of teams together under the flag of The Firearms Coalition, we'd love to have you. Send me a note via the Contact Us link.

Chris's Blog

(Gasp!) AHSA a front for Democrats!

As if this were something new…

I received a blog entry in email the other day from Ray Schoenke of American Hunters and Shooters (sic).  My mail agent doesn't display graphics unless I tell it to.  There are several advantages to that behavior.  Some images are offensive and I'd just as soon not have them popping up in my email.  But sometimes email contains something called a "web bug" which can be enlightening.  A web bug is an invisible graphic character that is hosted from a machine belonging to somebody that is tracking the email.  By scanning the logs, the sender can see how often mail is read.  It isn't necessarily an invasive thing, just a tracking tool to see how much mail is being opened.  But web bugs can reveal interesting things to those who pay attention.

At the bottom of Schoenke's latest missive there appears the following: 

Web Bug from http://democracyinaction.com/dia/Trackimage?key=222298036

Going to http://democracyinaction.com/ redirects to http://www.wiredforchange.com/.  The wiredforchange.com site features web kits and other online resources, all proudly flying the DLCC (Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee) flag. 

As we've said more than once, truly pro-gun Democrats are great for gun rights.  Be they "liberal" or "conservative" (the one-dimensional labels are a terrible measure of political position), an assumption that the Second Amendment means what it says, and moreover, that it's a good thing, moves the debate to other matters and lets other policy discussions continue on their merits. 

But based on history, there's little to lead anyone to believe that the Democrats as a group have turned pro-gun, or that AHSA is anything more than a tool of the Democratic Party leadership.

Jeff's Blog

More on Holder

Keep Spreading the Word!

As Chris noted, the active opposition to the appointment of Eric Holder to the office of Attorney General continues to build.  Our friends Alan Korwin and David Codrea have recently commented on the subject and their thoughts are worth reading if you haven't already done so.

Here is Alan's analysis of the current "Assault Weapons" ban legislation which has been languishing in the House for the past couple of years and where the anti-rights folks are going from here:

Gun Ban List Details

Be sure to take particular note of the section discussing the AG's powers under the proposed legislation and be aware that the AG currently has much of that power.

Now World Net Daily has picked up the story.  Read the article by clicking here.

David Codrea addresses the issue directly in a three-part series for The Examiner news group here:

Holder: To be or Not to be…

You can click on the "Next" button at the end of the article to go to the next installment or click on the titles below.

How to Hold Holder without Using Guns

How You can Help Hold Holder

I agree with David's suggestion to keep guns out of the discussion when writing to harshly anti-gun Senators, but if the Senator is just mildly anti-gun or better, be sure to at least mention that Holder's record on the Second Amendment is a serious concern to you.  We need to be sure that these folks know it's us.

If you know people who are involved in other issues mentioned: Privacy, Givernment Restrictions on the Internet, Medical Marijuana, Cuban Ex-patriots, etc. be sure to share Codrea's information with them and encourage them to get involved in the fight to block his confirmation.

Together we can win this!

Jeff

 *** THIS JUST IN: The Heritage Foundation is reporting that Holder Authored a memo in 1999 which has led to the serious erosion of Sixth Amendment rights.  This could actually get the ACLU into this on our side.  Read all about it by clicking here.

 

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.

 

Continue reading Offensive Defense? →

Jeff's Blog

Militia Issue

Author and blogger Mike Vanderboegh and I got off to a rocky start toward the end of 2008, but since then we seem to be agreeing much more than we disagree.  Here are Mike's comments on my recent column "Offensive Defense?"
Mike is absolutely right in his take on this and his call to organize.  Neighborhood Watch type groups are a great way to get some structure and logistics in place. 
Here are Mike's comments:
 
 
 mi·li·tia, noun.
1. An army composed of ordinary citizens rather than professional soldiers.
2. A military force that is not part of a regular army and is subject to call for service in an emergency.
3. The whole body of physically fit civilians eligible by law for military service.

Jeff Knox reports here in an article titled "Offensive Defense," about allegations of the murder of innocents by the Algiers Point militia by A.C. Thompson here.

Here is Knox's summary in full:

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 . . .write to PO Box 3313, Manassas, VA 20108..

I concur with Jeff, especially his concerns about the bias and accuracy of the reporter, and the need for further investigation. But we need not wait for the results of such an investigation to draw some lessons from the allegations themselves.

Consider whether or not they would have even been made if the Algiers Point militia had not been some motley crew of volunteers put together on the spur of the moment. Consider, rather, what would have happened if they had been a unit of armed citizens who had trained and prepared for such a moment. What if they had been organized with simple CB communications, a chain of command, a roster and rules of engagement? What if, instead of viewing their black neighbors as potential threats, they had worked with them AHEAD OF TIME in a neighborhood watch? What if, instead of manning barricades and turning away everyone, they provided a little food and water and an armed escort guaranteeing their safety to the relief point? What if they had pledged to secure the safety of everyone in the quarter, standing up to the small bands of white racists that did appear? What then?

I can tell you. Then such incidents would never have occurred, and such allegations — even if false — would never have been made or, if made, would not have been believed. Indeed, had that been the case, the Algiers Point militia would have been one of the finest moments of the modern history of the American armed citizenry. In the aftermath, the testimony of the folks they assisted would have stood out above everything else. Instead, we will have an investigation to determine whether they merely acted as a cover for murder.

Let us have the investigation, certainly. But let the rest of us learn the lesson and put what we learn into practice. There is NO substitute for training and organization. There is no substitute in an uncertain situation for command and control, even if it is small group command and the internal control of an individual armed citizen firmly grounded in principle.

Let us also be clear that leadership is more than rounding up a bunch of guys with guns into a "militia." Militia is a generic term, meaning non-professional armed men operating in a group. The militias of the Balkans, Somalia, Rwanda, the Congo and other hellholes of recent history have besmirched the name. It is up to us, the armed citizenry of the United States, to retrieve the name from suspicion and condemnation. We do that by being "well regulated" in the 18th Century sense of that term. So let us do it.

Ammunition for the grassroots gun rights movement