The Unorganized

American Militia

King George didn’t listen to us either!

During his 2004 run for the Senate, Obama said, "I think that the Second Amendment means something. I think that if the government were to confiscate everybody's guns unilaterally that I think that would be subject to constitutional challenge."

No kidding Barack!

He didn't say it would be unconstitutional, just "subject to constitutional challenge." Nor did he express any opposition.

During the presidential campaign, a case challenging Washington D.C.'s draconian gun laws was pending in the U.S. Supreme Court. The laws banned all handgun registrations, prohibited handguns already registered from being carried from room to room in the home without a license, and required all firearms in the home, including rifles and shotguns, to be unloaded and either disassembled or bound by a trigger lock.

In June, the Court released its decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, holding that the laws violate the individual right to keep and bear arms unconnected to service in a militia as secured by the Fourth Amendment. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, emphasized that the individual right to bear arms pre-exists, and is independent of, the Constitution:

Putting all of these textual elements together, we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment. We look to this because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it "shall not be infringed." As we said in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 553 (1876), "[t]his is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed . . . ."

Obama admitted in a Feb. 11, 2008, interview that he supported the handgun ban, and that it was "constitutional." On June 26, he said he agreed with the Court's decision, but added that the right to bear arms is subject to "reasonable regulations." He never "explained" how an absolute ban on handguns is "reasonable," or how he can agree with the ruling, which said it was unreasonable.

Obama continued to duck and cover by talking about getting illegal guns off the streets, background checks for children and the mentally ill, and attacking the NRA. Obama's inconsistencies are numerous, but his real record, based on votes taken, political associations, and long standing positions, shows that Barack Obama is a serious threat to Second Amendment liberties. Don’t listen to his campaign rhetoric! Look instead to what he has said and done during his entire political career:

FACT: Barack Obama opposes four of the five Supreme Court justices who affirmed an individual right to keep and bear arms. He voted against the confirmation of Alito and Roberts and he has stated he would not have appointed Thomas or Scalia. (United States Senate vote 245, September 29, 2005 and vote 2, January 31, 2006 and Saddleback Forum, August 16, 2008)

FACT: Barack Obama voted for an Illinois State Senate bill to ban and confiscate “assault weapons,” but the bill was so poorly crafted, it would have also banned most semi-auto and single and double barrel shotguns commonly used by sportsmen. (Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee, March 13, 2003. To see the vote tally go to: http://www.nrapvf.org/Media/pdf/sb1195_obama.pdf)

FACT: Barack Obama voted to allow reckless lawsuits designed to bankrupt the firearms industry. (United States Senate, S. 397, vote number 219, July 29, 2005. (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00219)

FACT: Barack Obama wants to re-impose the failed and discredited Clinton Gun Ban. (Illinois Senate Debate #3: Barack Obama vs. Alan Keyes (http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Barack_Obama_Gun_Control.htm and http://www.ontheissues.org/IL_2004_Senate_3rd.htm) Oct 21, 2004)

FACT: Barack Obama voted to ban almost all rifle ammunition commonly used for hunting and sport shooting. (United States Senate, S. 397, vote number 217, Kennedy amendment July 29, 2005 (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00217)

FACT: Barack Obama has endorsed a 500% increase in the federal excise tax on firearms and ammunition. (“Obama and Gun Control,” The Volokh Conspiracy, taken from the Chicago Defender, Dec. 13, 1999. (http://www.volokh.com/posts/1203389334.shtml)

FACT: Barack Obama has endorsed a complete ban on handgun ownership. (Independent Voters of Illinois/Independent Precinct Organization general candidate questionnaire, Sept. 9, 1996. The responses on this survey were described in “Obama had greater role on liberal survey,” Politico, March 31, 2008. (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9269.html)

FACT: Barack Obama supports local gun bans in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and other cities. (David Wright, Ursula Fahy and Sunlen Miller, "Obama: 'Common Sense Regulation' On Gun Owners' Rights," ABC News' "Political Radar" Blog, http://blogs.abcnews.com, 2/15/08. (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/02/obama-common-se.html)

FACT: Barack Obama voted to uphold local gun bans and the criminal prosecution of people who use firearms in self-defense. (Illinois Senate, SB 2165, March 25, 2004, vote 20 and May 25, 2004, vote 3)

FACT: Barack Obama supports gun owner licensing and gun registration. (“Fact Check: No News In Obama's Consistent Record.” Obama ’08, December 11, 2007. (http://www.barackobama.com/factcheck/2007/12/11/fact_check_no_news_in_obamas_c.php)

FACT: Barack Obama refused to sign a friend-of-the-court Brief in support of individual Second Amendment rights in the Heller case.

FACT: Barack Obama opposes Right to Carry laws. (“Candidates' gun control positions may figure in Pa. vote,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Wednesday, April 2, 2008, and "Keyes, Obama Are Far Apart On Guns," Chicago Tribune, 9/15/04. (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_560181.html)

FACT: Barack Obama was a member of the Board of Directors of the Joyce Foundation, the leading source of funds for anti-gun organizations and “research.” (1998 Joyce Foundation Annual Report, p. 7)

FACT: Barack Obama supported a proposal to ban gun stores within 5 miles of a school or park, which would eliminate almost every gun store in America. (“Obama and Gun Control,” The Volokh Conspiracy, taken from the Chicago Defender, Dec. 13, 1999. (http://www.volokh.com/posts/1203389334.shtml)

FACT: Barack Obama voted not to notify gun owners when the state of Illinois did records searches on them. (Illinois Senate, May 5, 2002, SB 1936 Con., vote 26)

FACT: Barack Obama voted against a measure to lower the Firearms Owners Identification card age minimum from 21 to 18, a measure designed to assist young people in the military. (Illinois Senate, March 25, 2004, SB 2163, vote 18)

FACT: Barack Obama favors a ban on standard capacity magazines. (“Clinton, Edwards, Obama on gun control,” Radio Iowa, Sunday, April 22, 2007. (http://learfield.typepad.com/radioiowa/2007/04/clinton_edwards.html)

FACT: Barack Obama supports mandatory micro-stamping. (Chicago Tribune blogs, “Barack Obama: NIU Shootings call for action,” February 15, 2008, (http://blogs.trb.com/news/politics/blog/2008/02/barack_obama_comments_on_shoot.html)

FACT: Barack Obama supports mandatory waiting periods. (Independent Voters of Illinois/Independent Precinct Organization general candidate questionnaire, Sept. 9, 1996. The responses on this survey were described in “Obama had greater role on liberal survey,” Politico, March 31, 2008. (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9269.html)

FACT: Barack Obama supports repeal of the Tiahrt Amendment, which prohibits information on gun traces collected by the BATFE from being used in reckless lawsuits against firearm dealers and manufacturers. (Barack Obama campaign website: “As president, Barack Obama would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment . . .” (http://www.barackobama.com/issues/urbanpolicy/#crime-and-law-enforcement.)

FACT: Barack Obama supports one-gun-a-month handgun purchase restrictions. (Illinois Senate, May 16, 2003, HB 2579, vote 34)

FACT: Barack Obama supports a ban on inexpensive handguns. (“Obama and Gun Control,” The Volokh Conspiracy, taken from the Chicago Defender, Dec. 13, 1999. (http://www.volokh.com/posts/1203389334.shtml)

FACT: Barack Obama supports a ban on the resale of police issued firearms, even if the money is going to police departments for replacement equipment. (“Obama and Gun Control,” The Volokh Conspiracy, taken from the Chicago Defender, Dec. 13, 1999. (http://www.volokh.com/posts/1203389334.shtml)

FACT: Barack Obama supports mandatory firearm training requirements for all gun owners and a ban on gun ownership for persons under the age of 21. (“Obama and Gun Control,” The Volokh Conspiracy, taken from the Chicago Defender, Dec. 13, 1999. (http://www.volokh.com/posts/1203389334.shtml)

Without a doubt, Barack Obama has proven himself to be an enemy of the law abiding firearm owner. At the same time, Obama has proven himself to be a friend to the hardened criminal. While a state senator, as you have just read, Barack Hussein Obama voted four times against legislation that would allow a homeowner to use a firearm in defense of home and family.

Does Barack Obama still sound to you like a “friend” of the law-abiding gun owner?

And speaking of friends, you can always tell a person by the company they keep. Obama counts among his friends the Rev. Michael Pfleger – a renegade Chicago priest who has openly called for the murder of gun shop owners and pro-gun legislators. Then there is his buddy Richard Daley, the mayor of Chicago who has declared that if it were up to him, nobody would be allowed to own a gun. And let’s not forget Obama’s pal George Soros – the guy who has pumped millions of dollars into the UN’s international effort to disarm law-abiding citizens.

Obama has shown that he is more than willing to use other people’s money to fund his campaign to take your guns away from you. While a board member of the leftist Joyce Foundation, Barack Obama wrote checks for tens of millions of dollars to extremist gun control organizations such as the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence and the Violence Policy Center.

Does Barack Obama still sound to you like a “friend” of the law-abiding gun owner?

Under the Second Amendment, Barack Obama says, "There is an individual right to bear arms, but it is subject to common-sense regulation, just like most of our rights are subject to common-sense regulation."

In last year's ruling, which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Washington, D.C., gun law that bans possession of handguns in the home and requires that rifles and shotguns be kept "unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock." The law thereby effectively bars city residents from using firearms for self-defense in their own homes.

Obama evidently considers that de facto prohibition a "common-sense regulation," since he recently cited Washington's law as an example of constitutionally permissible gun control. "The notion that somehow local jurisdictions can't initiate gun safety laws to deal with gangbangers and random shootings on the street isn't borne out by our Constitution," he said.

The D.C. gun law, passed in 1975, isn't really about gangbangers, which it has not exactly disarmed, or random shootings on the street, which it has not noticeably curbed. In effect if not intent, it is about disarming law-abiding residents who might want to protect themselves from gangbangers and other violent criminals.

It's not surprising that Obama sees nothing unconstitutional about this situation, since he does not acknowledge that the Second Amendment has anything to do with self-defense. "As a former constitutional law professor, Barack Obama understands and believes in the constitutional right of Americans to bear arms," his website claims. "He will protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport, and use guns for the purposes of hunting and target shooting" (emphasis added).

This is the only substantive discussion of the Second Amendment on Obama's website. It's part of a document that lists "Protecting Gun Rights" as a subcategory of "Supporting the Rights and Traditions of Sportsmen," which is like listing "Protecting Freedom of Speech" as a subcategory of "Supporting the Rights and Traditions of Auctioneers."

It is true that hunting – at the time an important source of sustenance, as opposed to the hobby it has become for most Americans – was not the use the Framers had in mind when they guaranteed the right to arms. As the D.C. Circuit emphasized when it found Washington's gun law unconstitutional, "the people's right to arms was auxiliary to the natural right of self-preservation," which was "understood as the right to defend oneself against attacks by lawless individuals, or, if absolutely necessary, to resist and throw off a tyrannical government."

Because Obama ignores these aspects of the Second Amendment, he sees no constitutional barrier to a complete ban on the manufacture, sale, and possession of handguns, which he supported when he ran for the Illinois Senate in 1996. Two years later he said he favored a ban on the sale or transfer of all semiautomatic firearms, which would cover not only most handguns but many hunting rifles and shotguns as well.

Responding to criticism that Obama has since changed his position on gun control, his White House declares that "Obama has been consistent." If so, consistent civil libertarians – the ones who do not mentally skip from the First Amendment to the Fourth – should be worried.

Here is what Obama actually said about the Supreme Court ruling, “As President, I will uphold the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun-owners, hunters, and sportsmen. I know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne. We can work together to enact common-sense laws, like closing the gun show loophole and improving our background check system, so that guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists or criminals. Today's decision reinforces that if we act responsibly, we can both protect the constitutional right to bear arms and keep our communities and our children safe."

Despite the Heller ruling and his professed regard for the Second Amendment, Barack Hussein Obama will obviously push legislation to make possession and purchase of guns and ammunition as burdensome as the constitutionally comatose congressional majority will enact.

We should heed the warning of James Madison, "Father of the Constitution":  "There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

Arm Thyself

by William Buppert

President Obama has embarked on the final phase of Pax Americana and is ushering in an advanced imperial stage that will endanger every living American. Perennial readers of this site are better versed than most in the predatory nature of the state and its ability to target and vilify those it wishes to eliminate eventually whether through political neutralization such as Trent Lott or lethal means such as Waco. I'd like to focus this essay on the practical application of what Boston T. Party refers to as "liberty's teeth" or small arms. There are plenty of organizations like Jews For the Preservation of Firearms Ownership and Gun Owners of America which will provide you with all the intellectual ammunition you need to know why you should be armed; I want to tell you how. I want to offer a bare-bones primer on how to get started in amassing your personal armory (contrary to what the government says, an arsenal is where weapons are manufactured) and using the weapons you obtain. I have a military background that spans two decades, shoot competitively and currently instruct tactical firearms so I have left the armchair a few times.

There are plenty of sites from which you can obtain this information but I wanted to provide a fairly painless gateway to get started if you are beginning from ground zero. The black helicopter crowds are chockfull of hunker-down survivalist information which for the most part suffers from their barely hidden desire for the apocalypse to occur coupled with their propensity to be armchair enthusiasts unfettered by real world application of firepower. On the other end of the spectrum, you have the nation's largest gun prohibition organization, the National Rifle Association, selling plenty of safety-oriented gun practices (while winking lustfully at the Beltway media and other hoplophobes) and ignoring any martial aspects of weapons or gun handling the Founders wrote the Second Amendment for in the first place.

1. Establish a mindset much like the Flinters in F. Paul Wilson's novels. Fully embrace the initiated non-aggression principle. This is summed up as leave me alone or else. Whether you own weapons now or not, you should be fully decided that when, not if, the government comes around to seize them you will relinquish them one round at a time. Or you have had the foresight to properly cache spares and you can hand over that Lee Harvey Oswald Carcano to the nice young men in black ninja suits who are from the government and just want to help you. If you have any doubt about that, stop reading this and take any weapons you now own and donate them to a paleoconservative or libertarian who cares. You may continue reading if liberty means more than lip service. The right to self-defense should be beyond question to this audience.

2. If you bought one book on the subject, buy Boston T. Party's book, Boston's Gun Bible (revised April 2002). Hey, we're on LRC, you always want a book on the subject. As a matter of fact, this logical and sound compendium of gun stuff is worth a whole shelf of gun tomes. Read it two or three times and always have a highlighter in hand. He's done all the work for you. You just have to read and heed. While those new to the gun community will be amazed at the pedantic disagreements that enliven every corner of the gun culture from ballistics to weapons choice, enquiring minds will really be energized by the level of intellectual ferment once you get the gun habit. If one only read the New York Times or the LA Times, you'd think all gun owners were backward hillbillies who only Jim Goad could love. Like so many American subcultures, there is a niche for every need or desire. For instance, I disagree with his number one choice for a battle rifle (M1A v. FN-FAL) but that is the nature of the enterprise.

3. Write this on your chalkboard one hundred times: I will never, ever buy a weapon from a Federal Firearms Dealer (FFL). I will only make private party purchases through gun shows, the classifieds or through friends and neighbors. The Feral government has developed a devilishly clever system using the BATF as their stalking horse to enable a de facto and de jure gun registration system established at the central government level every time a weapon is purchased at a brick and mortar gun shop. Check your risk tolerance and local and state laws to determine the regulations regarding private sales but the litmus test is easy. If you see guns for sale in your local newspaper classifieds, it is under the government radar (for now). Recent events with the Islamic serial shooter in DC and the New Orleans fiasco prove the truth of a federal government gun database. Just ask the hundreds of Maryland gun owners who had the misfortune of purchasing .223 caliber rifles at gun stores. The same applies to ammunition; buy it at a gun show for cash as there is no requirement for a permit (yet) in most states. When buying these weapons through private sales, always be prepared to walk away if it smells funny. Never buy any weapon that even appears to be fully automatic or is hinted to be. The Class III licensing system in the US regulates these firearms in a very draconian fashion under the auspices of the 1934 National Firearms Act. The government has a history of entrapment and provocation. Ask Randy Weaver if a half-inch on a ruler is hazardous to your health or that of your family.

4. I could write a book on what to buy but that is beyond the scope of this essay. Armed conflict is a discipline of distance. Different firearms have envelopes of lethality as distance is increased which is also a factor in accuracy. To paraphrase Boston, a pistol is what you fight your way to your rifle with. Spare no expense since your life depends on these tools. At minimum you need a rifle and pistol for every member of your family. The Glock pistol is the hands-down winner for accuracy and reliability. As to rifles, if you are poorer than dirt, scrape up $100 and buy a Lee-Enfield .303 rifle. These bolt actions are highly serviceable for social work. If you have more money, invest the hundreds and thousands it will take to get a proper battle rifle such as an FN-FAL, M1A or HK91 and all the equipment and ammunition to accompany each rifle for its care and feeding. Be sure to have a minimum of 25 magazines per rifle and ten per pistol. From this point, once you have started to empty your wallet, more equipment will start to appeal to you such as load-bearing gear, body armor and all manner of shooting accoutrement. The sky is the limit (and your income).

5. Pay for the very best firearms training you can afford; a single digit percentage of the gun culture pays for professional training and this is the greatest shortcoming you can have. No matter how American the concept of having the most elaborate toys, if you can't employ them, then their value is moot. Go to Google, type in firearms training in your state and see who offers it locally or go to the nationally renowned training centers like Gunsite, Thunder Ranch or Firearms Academy of Seattle (my personal favorite for value and quality). Take your spouse, too. She is your primary team-member.

6. Teach your children well. The gun culture has roots as far back as the first settlers in North America. This continuity is a result of parents passing on their knowledge and weapons onto their progeny to continue down the line. Exposure to guns early enough can make liberty contagious.

Remember, guns don’t kill people, governments and criminals do.