[Monkeyleg]

I was born in 1950, raised by a stay-at-home mother who tended to five boys while my father worked hard to give us a good life. Not the latest, greatest toys, but we lived comfortably. There was food on the table and, if the blue jeans weren't worn out, they got passed down to me. That's the way it was for anyone I knew.

My brothers were all hunters by their early teens, and got their rifles and shotguns from the local hardware store or sometimes even by mail. That's how it was. I even have a photo of my oldest brother kneeling in the side yard in Flint, Michigan with his newly-bought scoped .30-06, photo circa about 1956. Nobody called the cops. They just came over to congratulate him. And Flint was and is a good-sized city.

What happened? Honestly, what the hell changed? Every day I log onto THR and read news stories that dont' surprise me anymore, until I remember the situation just forty years ago. And then I'm sick to my stomach.

Where did the Brady Bunch come from? And what the heck happened that the media gives their statements any credence at all? A couple of years ago, they were Handgun Control Inc. Now they're the "Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence united with the Million Mom March." By next year, they'll be the "Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence united with the Million Mom March and the Violence Policy Center and Americans For Gun Safety." Even with all their feeble atempts to consolidate, they'll be able to hold their annual meetings in a phone booth.

Yet, we're always on defense. Why? Why should I now have to pay $7000 for a Thompson full-auto that cost $900 just 18 years ago? Why should I have to pay $1300 for a Colt AR15 that cost just $600 in 1993? Why should I have to pay through the nose for anything that used to be affordable, all because of a small group of well-connected whiners?

At the last WI assembly veto override session, I talked with a couple of the chair-polishers from the WI State Patrol. I asked one of them if, one of his troopers was faced with someone charging toward him with a knife, the trooper should have the right to shoot in self-defense. Well, of course, he said. I then asked him if, someone was charging toward me with a knife, I had the right to shoot in self-defense. He said that "citizens" should have our cell phones with us. Just call 911, he said, and they'll be there. Another elitist who's got his own backside covered.

We've got Schumer, Feinstein, Kennedy, and the other usual suspects trying not to just renew the "AW ban," but extend its provisions to guns that "sportsmen and hunters" don't even realize are in jeopardy.

Every news anchor and every talking head--and that includes so-called "conservatives" like Bill O'Reilly--talks about gun issues without a clue. They wouldn't know a Ruger Blackhawk from a Chicken Hawk. They're blow-dried talking heads who have no clue about factuality.

They talk about "blood in the streets," or "the rapid-fire capabilities of Assault Weapons." And all we can do is write a letter to them that, at best, will be read by some staffer who hates what we believe in, and who is in denial when it comes down to facts.

We're seeing ranges that have been around for decades being shut down. We've seen citizens being forced to turn in their guns. We're seeing the blissninnies running the asylum.

Many of us on THR can't afford the full-auto's that were fairly priced in 1985. Some of us can't afford the "real" FAL's or Steyr Augs that were available back in 1988. Some of us can't afford the price of a pre-1994 AR15. And it wasn't production costs that drove the prices on those guns through the roof.

I've had it. I'm absolutely fed up with arbitrary, capricious rules and laws that make no sense. There's a day coming--and that date I cannot predict--when all of this horsehockey is going to rain down onto those politicians who try to play the "blood in the streets" card, or try to play both sides on gun issues.

When that day comes, Mr. Politician--and that day will most assuredly come--you'd better be with me. If not, you'll wish that your mother had an abortion.

[fjolnirsson]

Monkeyleg,

Unlike you, I have never known a time when I could stand in my front yard with a firearm in plain view and not be visited by cops. I grew up with this strange, anti-gun, anti-freedom climate.
I read stories of the men who made this country. I hear stories from men like you, who remember better days.
I hear these stories, and I weep into my Hoppes #9.
And I AM mad as Hel.
Something has to give. I maintain hope that the people of my country will pull their heads from where the sun doesn't shine.
Until then, just in case,
I'll keep lots of ammo handy, and my guns clean.

[HBK]

Every damn day. :mad:

[labgrade]

Monkeyleg, Sir,

I share your frustration/s.

Born in '52, so not so much separated from your age, & was trusted to hunt on my own, with "just" a .22 rifle, when 6-7 yrs old - have been actively shooting since 4 yrs old. I had my own 20 shotty at 8, & a scoped .243 at 11.

Never once have I caused another person any harm through the pursuits of my activities.

When 10 years old, I could walk into almost any store & lay down the cash & walk out with either a brick of .22LR, or some 20/12 gauge shells, or high-power rifle rounds - until GCA '68, when annything that could be used in a handgun (.22LR ammo) was forever forbidden to me till I turned 21, & I still had to wait another year or so tillI could again buy shotty, or "real" rifle ammo.

Disgusting!

We got to take out shotguns to school, so we could go dove hunting right afterwards - sometimes before - & we could fly comercial with a shotgun, & ammo merely stashed in the overhead bins.

& strange enough, The Wife & recently hosted a fellow THR member & SO a coupla weeks back & just talking about The Way Things Used To Be, I think we turned 'em off - coupla old fogey-types yakkin' it up. Think we were viewed as being somehow "better." I dunno. & The Lad was sporting a C&L'd BHP all the while ..... very :cool:

I suspect we didn't have the impact we tried to - our failure in the grand scheme, I'd guess.

& it's a sad thing, Monkeyleg, that we're facing.

My biggest frustration is talking to those who purport to be "our own," who have firearms, but see no "reasonable restrictions."

Of course, we ought to have registration, we ought to have cameras/lock-downs in schools, we ought to have "all these things for our continued safety ..... " :barf:

They were brought up with it, they've lived it their whole lives & have known nothing different - the way it is, is the way it always was - they've never seen freedom - nor, really did we - we got to see a piece of Americana that was after what was was once ever so much more free.

We all can only relate to our own reality.

This new reality is one of a more constricted version of what freedom used to mean - & it will only get worse.

Far as the Couple Commie Chicks bit, I'd suggest getting a rdialer/e-mail address & sign up - get their alerts, & act on 'em. Same-same for every anti-piece you can get your hands on. Spread their newz far & wide on boards such as this. Gotta be pro-active on this & get the word out.

Too, I'd suggest dialing into something akin to CopWatch.com - the "beagles" are the ones who will actually enforce this stuff, once enacted.

In politics, it seems that you either do to others, or it's done to you. & by no means "nasty," I only mean that one must be proactive to curtail what others will attempt to do - gotta by-passs/curtail/head that off through your own activity.

Sucks, don't it? that you have to keep running merely to stand still? ;)

[4570Rick]

What can I say? Born in '51, any comment I would make would simply be re-beating the preveous posts. :(

[whm1974]

At the last WI assembly veto override session, I talked with a couple of the chair-polishers from the WI State Patrol. I asked one of them if, one of his troopers was faced with someone charging toward him with a knife, the trooper should have the right to shoot in self-defense. Well, of course, he said. I then asked him if, someone was charging toward me with a knife, I had the right to shoot in self-defense. He said that "citizens" should have our cell phones with us. Just call 911, he said, and they'll be there. Another elitist who's got his own backside covered.

Keep in mind the chair polisher may belilive that you do have the right to self defence but for political reasons he can't say it.

By the the $1500 Colt AR-15 is priced that hight because it is a Colt. You can get an AR-15 for $700 to $800 from other companys.

Bill MEadows

[ravinraven]

This thread asks the old question: "What the H is going on?"

Simple. [But with complex answers]

The natural form of government is tyranny. From the day we crawled down out of the trees, the alpha male said how things were going to be. "My way or the highway" was probably the first sentence ever uttered by man.

Some kinds of animals still live in alpha-male dominated packs. It works for them because no one has a different idea than the leader. "Eat, sleep, reproduce." Not a whole lot of intellectual activity going on.

Over the years, people [face it you PC types---men] have developed societies run by the rule of law and not one man rule. Jefferson noted that -- here I am paraphrasing --

In the natural course of things liberty recedes and tyranny takes over.

We are seeing this happen now. No one in any policy making part of any government has anything to fear from school yard shooters, armed robbers or gun toting murders. All of these criminal types are bent on their own immediate perverted joy or enrichment. These same policy makers have a lot to worry about these days from armed honest citizens.

When a government becomes a criminal enterprise its very first move is to disarm the citizens. We are seeing this natural slide into tyranny happen right before our eyes. Kennedy, Hitlary, Shumer and all the other "anti-gun" so-called "leaders" are anti-liberty anti-Americans. Kerry and others of his ilk wants to send the FBI to reign in terrorists. They don't want terrorist harboring and training tyrants brought down. Why? Saddam has more in common with Kerry and Clinton and Kennedy -- and the list goes on -- than any of us do. These people are criminals of the lowest order. They do have something to fear from honest armed people. They richly deserve the end that comes to traitors. I cannot think of or utter a term vile and low enough to properly describe these types. Yet we the people vote them into office.

Until they are stopped, America is in great danger of coming another Saddamist Iraq.

Have you noticed how the rule of law is being trashed? Just this week the mayor of SF has -- well you know what he's up to. Even gay activists are against his trashing of the law. But the judge out there seems to be upholding the trashing of the law. And what is Arnold going to do?

The mayor of SF says the law re: gay marriage is against the state constitution. I know of a great number of laws that are in direct opposition to the "shall not be infringed" line in 2A.

And the holding of this terrorist suspect Padilla without due process is not too comforting.

I would rather see us turn the tide of "natural government" back through legal means. Make no mistake about it. We are going to have to turn it back or face the awful fact of another American revolution.

Right now our citizens are becoming subjects and are being quietly and steadily ushered into the tranquility of tyranny and weaned away from the chaos of liberty. Which way do you want to go? Which way do most Americans want to go?

thanx for the early morning ranting room.

ravinraven

[Boats]

Maybe this is insomnia driven but I have two words for the phenomenon: Whiny boomers.

There are more members of the post-WW2 generation than anyone else around. A lot of them became moral degenerates in the 60s. Many of them have NEVER grown up to what I'd call an emotionally mature adult. It is easy to spot these folks as they are more into feelings than thoughts and preach moral relativism.

Even after many of them allegedly became "respectable" adults, it was already too late for them to salvage any shred of common sense. Yesterday's self-indulgent and comfortably rebelling radical is today's nosy ex-hippie non-man and his insufferable chai quaffing, aromatherapy addled soccer mom wife or divorced "helpmate", and there are alot of them. Good thing is a lot of that "me me me" attitude has led to them not reproducing in great numbers and thereby mentally infecting subsequent generations with quite the same toxic level of touchy feely BS, though they do their damndest through control of the public education system and large swaths of elected offices.

Most of them know nothing about duty, honor, or sacrifice. In fact, they deride those things. The Clintons are emblematic of the nature of the beast that has been ruining America since the 60s. Don't get me wrong, a lot of good came out of the social upheaval of the 60s, such as the end of Jim Crow, but we have one hell of a hangover from much of the stupid liberal excesses that way too many boomers are still proud of in a perverse fashion. Think about it for a minute: The proud acceptance of the shirking of duty, the devaluation of individual responsibility, the rise of the litigation culture, gun control, environmentalism, political correctness, sexual amorality being accepted as commonplace, and the coddling of criminals and terrorists all have their roots in the petulant angst of the 60s.

I guess the only good news, as reflected by voting results and whatnot, is that the country is gradually drifting to the right. The kids of the self-indulgent boomer parents, and even some of those boomers self reflective enough to figure it out, in large part have been rejecting the ideological mistakes of the liberal chic of that mentally blighted era. That and every day, despite Lipitor, Viagra, and Botox, every boomer is that much closer to the tail end of the python.

So no offense to you in that demographic who by the grace of God have their heads screwed on straight, but if your parents were the "Greatest Generation," as a whole you folks are the horribly and tragically flawed failed offspring of greatness, playing Edward the Sixth to the previous generation's Henry the Eighth.

Cumbiya and all that happy horsecrap.

[JohnBT]

"as a whole you folks are the horribly and tragically flawed failed offspring of greatness"

Oh yeah? You need to get out more.

John

[7.62FullMetalJacket]

I feel your pain. I remember when none of this regulation occurred and gun safety classes taught in school. I know better that to believe that the post-68, and more specifically, the post-93, world is not normal. We must roll this back.

Tyranny is the ugly sister of entropy; BOTH ARE INEVITABLE. Only hard work keeps order (opposed to entropy), and only blood, seat and tears will prevent tyranny.

[braindead0]

Well, I was born in '68.. and I'm pissed off as much as you... I grew up with it, but I grew up in a household and small town where I could go up into the hills with a firearm when I was 12 and go shooting. But that was only becuase I grew up in a house full of guns... over the mantle, on the nightstand...etc.. I knew where they all were.. and yet I never harmed anyone or myself.

Self-rightous people with too much time on their hands caused this problem... The squeeky wheel gets the grease.. by the time gun owners realized what was going on they couldn't get their poo together fast enough to have much affect.

Personally I believe that some of our lack of progress are caused by the gunnies themselves. We need to divorce ancilliary issues from gun control. Too many people push for less stupid gun laws all the while pushing their own primarily republican agenda. This can alianate gays, serious pro-freedom people, free market economy folks...etc..

But alas, the issue of gun control doesn't 'live' in a vacuum.

[Shooter 2.5]

You live in a state governed by the democrats. That's why you're bummed out. The Repubicans in New Hampshire and Kansas are fighting for our Rights and as soon as you get rid of that governor, you'll get your Rights back.

That is if the gun owners don't do something stupid like vote for their pocketbook or vote libertarian.

[Sodbuster]

Do you ever reach your boiling point?
I wonder if that has anything to do with my latest signature line? I watch and listen to critters promise much, but deliver nothing and take everything. My father said the same thing. My grandfather said the same thing. Before my grandfather passed away at age 86 many years ago, he said he was glad he wouldn't be around to see what was going to happen.

[Intune]

1958. I remember. Now all my kids hear is, "can't do that. Not allowed to take that. Don't draw that kind of stuff. can't say that, ad inf..." "They're" winning the battle for young hearts & minds.

[TamThompson]

I was born in 1958, and remember when most hardware stores sold guns. After all, they're tools.

My mother and father were both born and raised in Houston, and my dad used to plink at rabbits on the other side of the railroad tracks. Don't try that in Houston now--you'll hit the Galleria.

According to my grandmother, they started my mother shooting young, at age 7, and by age 8 she was shooting the acorns out of trees. This was in Houston in 1942. Again, don't try anything like that in Houston now.

One of the ways the government has hoodwinked people is this mistaken belief some folks have that 'isn't it wonderful--our state has voted to GIVE us the right to carry a handgun concealed!' Bull. That's a human right and a constitutional one we've always had--it's just been violated in the last 20 years or so, and then codified and taxed with concealed carry. (Although it IS in the Texas constitution that the state has the right to regulate the wearing of arms with a view to prevent crime.)

[armoredman]

George Orwell was a visionary.
I was born in 1967, right before GCA 68, so I have never known a shop without 4473 forms, etc. However, bieng in AZ, I have never worried about a permit, license, registration, or being allowed to carry openly in public, even when I was 16, though that is now illegal to anyone under 18 with a host of exceptions.
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely", possible misquote, but truth about of Federal elected thugs. The states get more lenient every year, slowly but surely, whilst the Fed crack down harder and harder, and the congresscritters get more and more hysterical at the though of someone actually putting two and two together on where the Constitution actually went, and who had thier hand on the handle that flushed it.
We still have a chance, we can still right the wrongs at the ballotbox, as the states have proven. We can take back our government legally and peacefully. We have done it at state levels.
Watch for one watershed event, happening right now - if the Supremem Court rules that "enemy combatants", a term invented to cover home grown terrorists, (don't forget Jane's lists Gun Owners of America as a terrorist outfit), can be held without trial indefinately, then it's Katy bar the door, as Hell has come to breakfast.

[Abe]

Timely thread Dick. I started reading “To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth” by Jeff Cooper this week. While you’ve got thirteen years on me I’m right with you. I’ve been on a rolling boil for awhile now. I’m getting extremely tired of feeling like I have to justify my wants or needs for firearms. As a kid (age 8, 9, 10+) I’d be out and about with friends all day in the fields, woods, and river near my home progressing through BB, pellet, and .22 rifles. It was never an issue. None of us grew up to be goblins. We were just doing what kids had done for time out of mind.

As Cooper states in his book, there was a time when skill-at-arms was not only accepted in society it was expected. While I’ll grant you that I don’t need to go out and get a deer everyday to feed my family does that negate the need (or moreover the acceptance) in society of skill with firearms not to mention their ownership? I don’t think so but I’m definitely in the minority. The crazy thing is that if anything the need is greater now in terms of personal protection. Oh I forgot, we do have 911 aka dial a prayer. :rolleyes:

Unfortunately one part of the problem is that we are surrounded by sheeple. As Ravinraven put it, their primary interests are "Eat, sleep, reproduce.” I’d add entertainment to that list. We wouldn’t want them to have to have an un-entertained moment where they might actually have to rub two brain cells together and think. It’s a good thing God created the autonomic part of the nervous system because if some of these people had to think to breath they wouldn’t make it. (On second thought…:D ) If some of these people would engage their brain before they voted we wouldn’t have half the problems we do now.

I used to be amazed that people would listen to and believe the blather from the Million Nannies, the Brady Bunch, etc. with their willing accomplices in the media and government. Now I just get disgusted. The CCW business here in Wisconsin really brought this home recently.

I’d like to be optimistic but I don’t see this getting much better. We are slowly but surely being outnumbered.

- Abe

[John Ross]

As someone who has studied this for some time, I have a few comments:

The history of gun demonization has always been about the things that guns were associated with.

Thestart of this phenomenon was around 1920 or a bit before. WWI created a lot of widows, and in those days remarriage for widowed women was much less common than it is now. In 1920, women got the vote. Guns became negatively associated in women's minds. Prior to WWI, ads and other illustrations in publications regularly depicted women shooting for pleasure. After the war, this was MUCH less common.

Prohibition was enacted in 1919, which pretty much created Organized Crime. Gun demonization continued, and the Depression (which was at its worst in 1932) created high-profile bank robbers (Dillinger, Barrow, Nelson, Floyd, etc.) which the public associated with shoot-outs and machine guns.

With the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, thousands of Treasury agents would have been laid off, so the National Firearms Act of 1934 was enacted to give them something to enforce. NFA 34 originally included handguns, but so many people objected that noise reducers were substituted. This is one of the most astonishing public health blunders in history. Guns are loud enough to damage hearing, yet making them quieter is a felony. And almost no one is outraged.

The next major jump in gun demonization came with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Pre-'64, in those good old days you speak about, most gun stores had an unwritten policy of not selling to negroes. After the CRA, that became problematic. A final straw came in '68, when Black Panthers in California came onto the floor of the General Assembly armed with shotguns and hunting rifles. They obeyed all the gun laws of the time (which were written for hunters) and so they could not be arrested. This was a major incentive for passing GCA '68.

With the rise of the drug trade due to the government giving a tax-free monopoly to people who otherwise would be washing dishes for a living, guns continue to be associated in the public's mind with blacks, black and hispanic gangs (unlike West Side Story, there are no white gangs today outside of prison) and now terrorists. When a politician says his proposed law is to "keep guns out of the hands of gang members," he is really saying "keep guns out of the hands of black men."

When a state with any significant number of blacks passes a Shall-Issue carry law, it is almost always with a substantial application fee, and with a training requirement that also costs money. This acts like a poll tax, denying concealed carry to the unwashed.

Might this change? I don't know. Perhaps guns will come to be associated once again with freedom, instead of criminals. That subject gets explored further in my next book, which I'm now going to get back to.

JR

[Boats]

"as a whole you folks are the horribly and tragically flawed failed offspring of greatness"

Oh yeah? You need to get out more.


John

I get out plenty, thank you. Every simpering teacher or professor I have ever had was a boomer. Nearly every politician I have ever hated on a "feel in the gut level" is a boomer. Every judge I have ever encountered who'd rather "understand" an offender than deliver some punishment, or even a stern lecture while assessing a fine, is a boomer. I could go on, but I think most people already understand from whence the failure of this society stems and that I do not need to get out more.

I did not indict every boomer. However, on a generational basis there is not a lot to commend concerning a very large percentage of them.

[Mark Tyson]

John Ross said it all - it's the demonization of the gun culture as a crime culture that is enabling the antis to score such victories. As I write this I'm still seething over the Brady's latest slick little ad, now infecting MSNBC as well as CNN.

If we are to reverse the trend we have to take it to the airwaves and show everyone that the gun culture is NOT the crime culture, that most gun owners are responsible and lawful, and that we just want to be left the hell alone. Stop blaming inanimate objects for the evil deeds of people. We've got to make our case in the court of public opinion, or we're finished.

The antis have already tarred and feathered the NRA. I'll bet you that when your average American hears "NRA" he/she thinks: "Oh yeah, them. They're bad." How can they do this? Because by saying "The NRA" or "the gun lobby" they make us out to be some faceless mob inflicting our agenda on the country. As soon as the antis say "The NRA supports legislation X" then they have tilted the playing field in their favor.

We need to put the face back on the gun culture. At the personal level that means talking to your friends, neighbors and co-workers and showing them that you're just a regular guy who happens to take the right to bear arms very seriously. That makes it a lot harder to condemn gun rights supporters as a group.

A further step would be a public relations campaign in the media. We have to reach out to those who don't know much about guns. They say that politics is a sport played between the 30 yard lines. It's those fence-sitters that we need to communicate with, a job that the antis are doing much more effectively than us. It's easy for them because all they have to do is trot out some dead bodies and grieving victims. What we have to do is show that gun ownership is a part of our heritage as Americans, as important as our right to worship(or not worship), protest, write and vote.

That's a tall order, I know. But I think it can be done. It boils down to looking the pubilc in the eye and asking: "Are you willing to destroy my heritage and ruin my life for the sake of public safety?"

[dischord]

So no offense to you in that demographic who by the grace of God have their heads screwed on straight, but if your parents were the "Greatest Generation," as a whole you folks are the horribly and tragically flawed failed offspring of greatness, playing Edward the Sixth to the previous generation's Henry the Eighth. Born in 1965, I've never been able to decide if I was a Boomer or a Gen-Xer. My dad was a WWII vet and both parents grew up in the depression, so I share that with the Boomers. But I came too late to partake much in the kumbaya-let's-change-the-world stuff of the Boomers, and I share many of the same jaded views of the Gen-Xers.

In any event, for a time, I had a weird mix of the bogus world views of both the Boomers and Gen-Xers. But somehow, my head eventually got screwed on relatively strait, and all I can do is help my kid reach that point earlier than I did.

Yeah, my parents were part of the Greatest Generation, but that is passing now. I have to look to the future and if I can't single-handedly make my kid's generation the second coming of the Greatest Generation, at least I can try to make my kid someone my parents would have been proud to have stand beside them.

[Chuck Dye]

In 1966 several friends and I planned a 3 day backpacking weekend through the mountains of San Diego County, California. We were all 15 years old, and, not having driver’s licenses yet, were dropped at our jump off by parents and picked up at our exit at the end of the hike. We crossed national forest, state park, and private land (permission obtained well before arrival.) Our packs were festooned with scabbarded rifles and shotguns,, two of us had .22 revolvers on their belts, and our dinners were freshly killed rabbit and quail. On our last day we learned just how out of date our topo maps were when we rounded a boulder and found ourselves at an honor camp. A deputy sheriff escorted us the a point well beyond the camp. That was it: no hysterics, no fuss, no bother. We were not even asked for ID, or required to clear our weapons. We were greeted with courtesy and more than a little amusement and told to give serious thought to planning our next hike with more current maps.

[GraniteState]

Can't agree more.
I grew up in the same timeframe. My folks were not into firearms, but that didn't stop me from learning to shoot.
I was fortunate to attend summer camp and had the opportunity to get on the range until I had my fill. In those days people were not afraid to educate or discuss firearms. The country was less lawsuit happy and people learned to take responsibility for their actions.

I may be frustrated, but I don't let it stop me from attempting change. My kids are being taught responsibility. They are learning to make choices based upon knowledge and not follow like sheep. They shoot today, but may not always. At least they will have gained an understanding with which they make their decisions.

[Samurai Penguin]

They were brought up with it, they've lived it their whole lives & have known nothing different - the way it is, is the way it always was - they've never seen freedom - nor, really did we - we got to see a piece of Americana that was after what was was once ever so much more free.

We all can only relate to our own reality.

This is the thing that wakes me up in the night and occasionally brings me close to tears. We're being domesticated. Every few years, they take away more freedom, and every few years, a generation grows up thinking it's always been this way(and they sure aren't going to learn any different in public school history class)!

But maybe there's hope. I was born in 1969. Raised by a rabidly anti-gun parent in a place where there wasn't really a lot of need for them anyway. I never even touched a gun until just recently. And yet, I learned to think for myself. In spite of the indoctrination we've been put through in the past few decades, I managed to discern the real meaning of freedom.

I did it. Maybe others can too. Maybe enough to turn the tide. I hope so. Because the alternative is pretty ugly. :uhoh:

[HBK]

This lady, Liz Michael, had a quote on her web site that" Maybe it's time to shoot the bastards." She was going to write a book, but I haven't seen it. I think it was called, "So you've shot the bastards, now what?"

[BHPshooter]

(don't forget Jane's lists Gun Owners of America as a terrorist outfit)

You've got to be :cuss: kidding me. And terrorists (that will be synonymous with "gun owner" in a few years) can be held indefinitely without trial.

So, 215 years after the adoption of the Bill of Rights, we are finally getting the real idea of what the 2nd Amendment is there for -- to defend your own rights. I won't go into the graphic description of what that may entail, but you get it.

Yes, I'm at boiling point every hour that I'm awake.

Wes

[Norton]

I feel like I'm on a constant simmer 24.5 hours a day anymore. This whole business with the MD AWB has gotten me so upset that I actually lie awake at night pondering whether we may have to give up our jobs here and make a strategic withdrawal to another state.

But the sad reality as I see it is that states like MD, CA, MA are the front lines of the war for America's future and if we lose here, it will creep across the country until it has devoured every last shred of liberty and freedom.

I don't know what else to do. Even here in MD, we are the clear majority. Yet, we have arrayed against us the might of the leftist media, politicians and a few powerful and vocal lobbies. How is it that I can write 10 letters to the local paper and not have a SINGLE one published? How is it that Leah Barrett can write lies from the sanctity of her $870,000.00 house and be revered as the saviour of all that's good and holy?

I've often relayed the optimism that I feel when I see some of my students espousing thoughtful conservative opinion, but I must face the truth that they are a distinct minority amongst the brain-washed government educated masses.

This fight may be over already, I fear. And truth be known....I doubt that it will finish with a bang....more likely a whimper. There will be no Bravehearts shouting "Freedom", no Todd Beamers saying "Let's Roll", No Patrick Henrys decrying "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death".

When they finally say "turn 'em in".....we'll hold a couple back and hide them the best we can. We'll put a few cases of ammo in strategic places for a rainy day......but the truth is that we'll all just keep doing what we are.....just trying to get by the best we can. Yes, we'll write letters, make phone calls and generally behave as civilized people do. But darn few of us will sacrifice our families' futures by becoming Bubba's new girlfriend at www.statepen.gov.

Perhaps I'm just crying in my beer and need a few hours of sleep. Somebody please give me something to help me keep the faith:(

[Gramps]

Yep, those were the days. Born 49. Fondly recall packing my Winchester Model 12 to high school with me, in the back of my rig so I could limit out on phesants on the way home. That doesn't happen any longer for a # of reasons, #1 being I'd be permanently kicked out of school. No one thought about killing your fellow school mates. Boy have times changed. Hmmm, maybe replacing prayer with condoms wasn't a good idea after all.
Gramps

:confused:

[oldfart]

Threads like this one arouse strange feelings in me. I read about how someone born in 1958 has seen so much change in our way of life and is getting angry about it. Someone else complains about overlapping laws and jurisdictions and cries about how our government no longer represents us. Still others remember 'the good old days' when they carried their guns to school so they could go hunting afterward. Through all of this, a low background noise of rebellion murmurs.

John Ross had it right. So did Thomas Jefferson and Nathan Hale. So did Jefferson Davis and a host of others who, after trying everything else, finally took up arms against the tyrants that ruled over them.

We-- as a group-- have tried almost everything else. Some of us-- as individuals-- have passed that point. Every week we see a new story about someone who has reached his own personal boiling point and struck out at the source of his pain. On rare occasions-- because they are well protected-- a member of that "source" is struck. More often though, it is one of the lower ranking soldiers who gets hurt, a police officer.

Earlier today I read a long dissertation about this very subject. The author suggested that the American people are withdrawing their "consent" to be governed. That they are ignoring more and more foolish 'feel-good' laws and the legislators who pass them. He indicated that widespread renunciation of the PATRIOT ACT by cities and counties across the land is a symptom of the growing discontent with the 'one-size-fits-all' laws handed down from Washington. I know of a number of good citizens who routinely carry concealed guns WITHOUT a permit from the King. I imagine there are many,many more who ignore that law and other laws whose only purpose is to categorize us all.

From time to time someone suggests it might well be time to 'shoot the bastards.' If the moderators don't immediately remove his post, others quickly reply with cries about how such action would lead to (gasp) WAR!

Folks, we are at war, on several fronts. We are being invaded from the south. Our government, which is instituted to protect us, instead protects the corporations that own the smaller companies that hire these invaders. Our military is being squandered in countries half-way around the world while our bureaucrats welcome thousands and millions of 'refugees' from those and other, similar countries.

We have an ongoing war on poverty, and poverty is winning. We have a war on drugs, and drugs are more plentiful than ever. We have a war on terrorism, and we are too terrified of our own government to stand up and spit in its eye! Terror has won this one too. As gunowners, we can only hope the blissninnies begin a war on guns. I could use a few more!

I was born the same year the National Firearms Act was signed into law. I remember the things you have all talked about-- and more. I remember wearing a pair of cap-guns to see a Tom Mix movie. I remember a Red Ryder BB gun under the Christmas tree. I remember my dad laying on top of the house with an '03-A3 resting across the roof peak and shooting the heads off pheasants at 200 yards. I also remember a man who committed suicide by hanging himself while a dozen neighbors watched. I know he hanged himself because my dad was there and he told me what happened. It seems that the man felt remorse for having raped a small girl.

As long as these threads keep showing up you can bet no one will drum up enough intestinal fortitude (guts) to spit in the eye of the beast. As long as we can vent here we won't act there. That has to be one of the primary reasons government will never shut down the internet. So keep typing and relieving the pressure and nothing will ever get done... just like the beast wants.

[Norton]

oldfart....maybe you've hit the nail on the head. What if the internet is really just a different form of pacification that allows us to talk the talk but avoid walking the walk? It could be that it's even more insidious than TV because we know TV sucks but believe that our posting here and other places somehow makes a difference.

You've sort of come close to what I was talking about that we stockpile guns and ammo for SHTF but what if we are already there and we are just watching it happen?

What will be our "shot heard 'round the the world"? Has it already happened and no one was listening? Who will be the ones who finally say, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore"?

I don't even pretend to have the answers anymore. The more I read, the more confused I get. The more I see, the angrier I get. I'm not ready to climb into the clock tower yet, but I can see how there may be others out there who are. We've lost our sovereignity, our individual freedoms and the more we resist, the more we are branded as "extremists".

The people who think as most of us here on THR do are clearly in the majority in this country, yet that voice is somehow squelched by a leftist controlled press. When a news source such as Fox (love'em or hate'em) resists this trend they are dismissed as right-wing mouthpipes despite that fact they go OUT OF THEIR WAY to present dissenting opinions on both sides of issues.

How is it that our representative government no longer represents us? What do we do?

ok....too much Sam Adams Double Bock......or is it not enough?:p

[7.62FullMetalJacket]

Oldfart,
Ttyping here does not satisfy me. This means of communication helps me define boundaries, listen to the rumble of the jungle, and get a feel for what other members are thinking. I have actually accelerated preparations for the coming "possible" conflict. Before THR, I sensed somethjing was amiss, but could not know the magnitude. AFter discussing the numerous issues here, I am getting a real sense of the magnitude. My personal trip wire is getting real tight.

[Mark Tyson]

What if the internet is really just a different form of pacification that allows us to talk the talk but avoid walking the walk?

Take heart - the consensus seems to be that the net is a vehicle for social mobilization. Didn't you and a bunch of others just coordinate an appearance in Annapolis over the internet?

[geegee]

When I think of something that provides a stark contrast of today and when I was a kid (I was born in '52), it's the fact that my high school had a rifle team. I wasn't a member, but just the fact that it was in a suburb of Buffalo, N.Y. should tell you how different things have become. I can't imagine a high school rifle team anywhere in America, much less a high school in New York State. As I recently told my sister "Once Mom and Dad pass away, I'll never go back. Any state that would elect Hilary Clinton as a Senator surely has nothing I'm interested in."

IMHO, two of biggest accomplices in the change of our country are the media and lawywers. If you can control the messenger, the content of the message can be most anything you want. With a national media that has been far too happy for years to provide cover for every liberal politician and special interest group, they've had their way in framing the discussions and defining who we are. I don't care what anyone here thinks of Rush Limbaugh (personally I like him, but nowhere near as much as I used to), but he will be identified as the single most important conservative in the second half of the 20th Century. There are more that have greater intellect, and some more eloquent, but without his tenaciousness in publicly dogging liberals every day for the past 15 years, our plight would be far worse.

Inflation will always increase the pricing of goods and services, but the cost to the consumer of living in the most litigious society is enormous. Why have so many things exploded in cost from "the good ole days?" The answer I believe is in the courts. Every person, every business, every school, has to factor in the cost of a legal battle looming on the horizon. That's just the way it is, and it won't get any better anytime soon. People don't settle anything anymore "man to man." Have a dispute with a neighbor, a relative, or an employer? Sue the b@$t@rd$ Ask any teacher if he or she has ever encountered a kid that has responded to their disciplinary admonition with "You can't do that to me. My father will sue!" Do I even need to mention what Affirmative Action has done to the employment situation in this country? :fire:

Yeah, I'm fed up too. geegee

[Norton]

Mark Tyson....I suppose you are right in that regard, but I fear it will be for nothing. These socialists in control of our state government have decided that they do not need to listen to the constituency which they allegedly represent. They will pass that AWB regardless of what the people of MD truly want.

[Norton]

7.62FullMetalJacket....

Before THR....I was like you....I sensed something "just wasn't right" with what I believed should be, and the way things were. I continue to use the analogy of "The Matrix".......we've unplugged ourselves from the Matrix and the other poor slobs are content to go about their miserable little lives not wanting to see or believe what's really going in the world.

[Standing Wolf]

The natural form of government is tyranny.

You didn't make my day, Rainraven, but you nailed it.

[Atticus]

Interesting thread. I was born in 1956 and can relate to the experiences posted here. I do get frustrated and depressed at times, but overall I don't think things in general are all that bad. Granted, I don't live in an area that is strongly anti-gun, and I own far more more guns than I thought I ever would. I will soon get to carry concealed legally (something I've not been able to do LEGALLY in my entire life). Even the Democratic party strategist are telling their candidates to play down the gun issue. It's not a lost cause,at least politically, but socially it is a huge issue. We are getting Urbanized in a big way, and in the urban setting, guns are equated with non-white gangs and crime, (just as John Ross stated), and medicated white kids shooting classmates. The media and public schools are teaching kids to believe that guns are like heroin (1% usefull and 99% harmfull). I agree with Boats on many points; but what I see at work nearly every day, is a whole new generation of 20-30 somethings that have been re-educated by the system to be anti-gun. I see it in my own kids, who are too young to understand many of the concepts involved, although I try everyday to teach to their level, and will continue to do so. It is a powerfull force to overcome. THAT is what I find most frightening.

[seeker_two]

ravinraven got it in one...:cool:

I've had it. I'm absolutely fed up with arbitrary, capricious rules and laws that make no sense. There's a day coming--and that date I cannot predict--when all of this horsehockey is going to rain down onto those politicians who try to play the "blood in the streets" card, or try to play both sides on gun issues.

When that day comes, Mr. Politician--and that day will most assuredly come--you'd better be with me. If not, you'll wish that your mother had an abortion.

When the time comes, count me in the coathanger brigade...:fire:

[oldfart]

I will do this again-- and again and again, if neccesary. Go to www.lizmichael.com/mcveight.htm. From there you can find other stuff she's written. Rush is good because he has a wide audience, but others--- and Liz is one-- are better. Some of what she says you won't like but it's still worth reading and thinking about.

One of the first things we have to get through our heads is... our government is our enemy! It is no longer a government of the people in the sense that it is made up of citizens like us. Rather, it is a government of the people in the sense that it governs us. It governs us because we are afraid of it; that is to say we are both tyrannized by it and terrified of it.

I started grade school when I was only five years old. Naturally, I was smaller than my classmates and I got pushed around quite a lot. It got to a point where I always walked behind the other kids and kept my mouth shut except when spoken to. It continued until my second year of high school when, for some reason I've never understood, I just got fed up and socked a guy who had, until then, made my life miserable. To this day, I don't know who was more surprised, him or I, but the bullying stopped. Not only did he stop but the other guys stopped too. That was the beginning of my education. After that, I never backed down from an even fight and if it wasn't even, I waited until it was.

That's just about where we are. We recognize the bully and we know his tactics. We just haven't decided to slap him in the mouth... yet! The bad thing is, if one of us does decide to make a stand he'll do it alone and the media will crucify him.
How many went to help at Ruby Ridge? Well, actually there were a few, but they weren't properly organized and the JBTs nabbed them right away. But no one showed up at Waco or any of the other smaller situations. That Church in Indianapolis (I think) was being primed for a big slapdown until word got out that some militia group might show up, then the government got a whole lot more reasonable.

People fight for causes. We like to say we'll fight for our way of life and our freedom and those are reasonable causes. The JBTs are fighting for their retirement fund. While I might lay my life on the line for my family I doubt very many of us (or them) would do the same for a check drawn on the treasury of a nation in debt to some foreign country.

The simple fact is... if we want to be free, we'll have to fight for it. The current generation has no knowledge of what previous generations had to do to pass on the little bit of freedom they now enjoy and there is no way to properly tell them either. Just like every generation before, they'll have to suffer and die until they no longer have anything left to lose. Then-- and only then-- they'll fight! In the meantime, it is up to us to keep the swords sharp and clean for the comming battle.

[HunterGatherer]

I reach boiling all the time.


Here is what I try to do about it: http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66588

[Gordon Fink]

If and when the “assault-weapons” ban is reauthorized and expanded later this year, the legislative war will be effectively over. The remaining choice will be to fight or to lose the ability to so.

We will not fight …

~G. Fink