FirearmsCoalition.org

Manassas, VA --(Ammoland.com)- Representative Darrel Issa (R-CA) referred to the activities of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) Operation Fast and Furious as “felony stupid.”

Others have suggested that the plan was intentionally designed and cleverly crafted to bolster statistics in support of stricter gun control laws. Whether the operation was just stupid or intentionally criminal, it was clearly bad behavior on the part of ATF and Justice Department (DOJ) and such bad behavior should not be rewarded.

Some members of Congress, Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Elijah Cummings (D-MD) in particular, want to reward ATF and DOJ’s criminal stupidity with increased funding and increased authority through tighter regulation of firearms dealers and lawful firearm purchasers.

ATF has introduced – and the Administration has now approved – and “emergency” regulatory change requiring firearms dealers in border states to report any purchaser who buys more than one semi-auto rifle greater than a .22 within a given week. The US House of Representatives promptly, and properly, rejected the new regulations by passing an appropriations rider prohibiting any funds from being used to enact or enforce the plan.

Proponents of the regulation argue that it gives ATF an important tool to help detect straw buyers and traffickers and that it poses little inconvenience to lawful gun buyers. Many on our side disagree , but usefulness and inconvenience aside, the fact is that Congress has looked at long gun reporting in the past and rejected the idea. For ATF and the Obama administration to now push forward, bypassing Congress, in order to do something Congress has previously refused to do is clearly overreaching and probably illegal. If Congress had passed a law setting auto mileage standards, but had specifically chosen to omit larger pickups from those standards, it would be outrageous for some bureaucracy to later enact regulations including trucks.

This case is no different except that it is questionable whether even Congress has the authority to regulate firearms sales. Unelected bureaucrats certainly don’t.

The regulation also creates a de facto registration system, something Congress has expressly forbidden on numerous occasions, and it puts additional burdens – and liabilities – on the gun dealers. ATF claims that the records will be destroyed after two years, but ATF and DOJ have long histories of reneging on such guarantees, even when they are spelled out in law.

Purchase of multiple firearms within a week is not particularly uncommon and doing so should not make a person a suspect, nor should it result in their personal information being stored in government systems. Also, if the regulation does go into effect, it will be no time at all until ATF will be demanding that the reporting requirement be expanded beyond the border states. It will become the “multiple sales non-reporting loophole” and they will insist that all states need to follow the reporting requirements.

Firearms dealers are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They want to honor and respect customers’ rights, but ATF controls their licenses and the laws and regulations hold dealers responsible for things they “should have known.” Dealers have to pass up business and/or alert ATF when they suspect possible criminal activity. Not doing so can have serious consequences. A New Mexico dealer is in jail today because the local police chief in the town of Columbus was allegedly trafficking guns to Mexico. The ATF says the dealer “should have known” so he is considered a co-conspirator. He could lose everything for selling guns to the Police Chief!

At the same time, gun owners can be very unforgiving of dealers who they perceive as “too cooperative” with ATF so dealers have to be careful about that too. Still, dealers don’t want to be selling guns to criminals as demonstrated during Operation Fast and Furious when dealers repeatedly expressed reservations about doing business with suspicious characters and ATF insisted that they go forward with sales. Mandatory multi-sale reporting increases dealers’ paperwork load, but relieves them of some judgment calls. It might make things generally easier on dealers in the short term, but it would probably make things worse for them in the long run.

Dogs, Children Or Bureaucrats Its A Mistake To Reward Bad Behavior

Perhaps the most important reason to deny ATF’s long-gun registration regulation is, as stated earlier, that whether you’re dealing with dogs, children, or bureaucrats, it is always a mistake to reward bad behavior. ATF and DOJ (including the US Attorney’s Office and possibly the FBI and DEA) behaved badly. They encouraged and forced sales of some 2000 firearms (that we know of) to known Mexican gun traffickers and then they turned their backs and allowed those guns to disappear into the black market and to crime scenes in Mexico and the US, including the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

They did this in violation of long-standing rules of operation and common sense as well as international law. They did not do this in response to weak US gun laws or a need for multi-gun reporting. These straw buyers were already known and under surveillance.

Politically motivated felony or just felony stupid, this was bad behavior any way you look at it and it should not be rewarded with increased authority, increased responsibility, and increased funding.

ATF, DOJ, the US Attorney’s Office, and any other agency involved in this fiasco need to be slapped down, not rewarded, and responsible individuals should be prosecuted.

Copyright © 2011 Neal Knox Associates – The most trusted name in the rights movement.

About:
The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and with a historical perspective of the gun rights movement. The Firearms Coalition is a project of Neal Knox Associates, Manassas, VA. Visit: www.FirearmsCoalition.org

FirearmsCoalition.org

Manassas, VA --(Ammoland.com)- The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has a long history of excess and overreaching and they’re at it again.

Using exaggerated reports of gun smuggling from the US into Mexico as their justification, the agency has filed for an Emergency Regulation requiring gun dealers to keep track of their customers and file special reports to ATF whenever a customer purchases more than one semi-automatic rifle within any 5-day period.

Such special reporting is already required for multiple sales of handguns and has proven to be thoroughly useless as a law enforcement tool.

ATF’s requested regulation – which is unconstitutional, violates a statutory prohibition against firearms registration schemes, and was obviously filed as an “Emergency” simply as a means of bypassing Congress – would be “temporary,” meaning that it would have to be renewed in 4 or 5 months, and is said to only apply to gun dealers in states bordering Mexico, though the regulation, as submitted, seems to be missing that specific limitation.

ATF Overreaches Again – Threatens Rights **Volk

At this point the proposed regulation is awaiting approval from the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA.) Political observers will recall that OIRA is headed by President Obama’s old friend Cass Sunstein who famously advocated for the abolition of all hunting and for the extension of legal rights – including the right to have a court-appointed attorney – to animals. While Mr. Sunstein is an attorney and college professor specializing, in part, in constitutional law, his record shows that his Constitution does not include the Second Amendment. It is expected that Sunstein’s office will approve ATF’s Emergency Regulation by the first week of January unless there is immediate and vehement objection from members of Congress and the public.

In the late ’70s shortly after my late father, Neal Knox, took over the NRA’s lobbying efforts, ATF leaders attempted to expand their power by implementing a regulatory scheme requiring that gun manufacturers add a government-defined 13-digit serial number to every gun and that dealers report detailed information, including that new serial number, to ATF for every sale. Records of those sales, guns, and purchasers were to be stored in ATF computers.

It was gun registration, pure and simple.

The scheme might have slipped through had it not been for the heightened visibility of ATF due to Dad’s efforts and his immediate sounding of the alarm when the proposal was introduced.

Congress had upon numerous occasions debated the idea of a federal gun registration law and had rejected the idea on each occasion. For ATF to decide to bypass Congress and implement such a registration scheme via regulation was rightly perceived as an affront by many members of Congress and their indignant response was to remove some four million dollars from the agency’s operating budget (the amount ATF said they expected to spend on the scheme.)

That overreach, along with egregious abuses of honest gun dealers by the ATF led to the introduction of the McClure-Volkmer Firearms Owners Protection Act to repeal some of the more onerous and confusing sections of the Gun Control Act of 1968.

It is to be hoped that current members of Congress will have a similarly indignant response to ATF’s overreaching in this instance as here again the agency is trying to implement by regulation something which the Congress has considered and rejected in the past.

Rights opponents will argue that rights activists like me are overly sensitive and unyielding in our positions and that we reactively oppose any firearms regulations regardless of how benign or effective they may be. There will be an inclination to accept ideas like this and then place the burden of proof upon rights advocates to explain why it’s a bad idea. Really, the burden of proof belongs to those who wish to interfere with our rights. It is up to ATF to show the legal authority to institute this proposed regulation and that it does not violate the spirit or intent of any existing law. It is also up to the ATF to show that their proposed regulation will be effective and productive as a means of fighting illegal gun trafficking.

The fact is that ATF can present no such evidence in support of their idea, just the suggestion that the proposal sounds reasonable and might be of use. That’s not good enough.

It is overreaching for an agency to follow after Congress and enact regulations where Congress has refused to enact laws, especially where Congress considered and discarded those exact actions.

It is extra-legal for an agency to ignore statutory limitations barring the collection or archiving of information about gun purchasers, not to mention limitations under the Paperwork Reduction Act forbidding unnecessary increases in paperwork burdens.

The multiple-sales reporting scheme claims to be aimed at keeping guns out of Mexico, but it fails on that point as well. First, it will have little effect on gun smuggling in Mexico for smugglers familiarize themselves with the laws they are breaking. They will easily avoid ensnaring themselves in such an obvious trap. Second, while the actual number of guns that arrive in Mexico from the USA is impossible to determine, we know that the number being reported is inflated since the ATF only traces those guns selected by the Mexican authorities. There is strong evidence that American civilian gun shops are only one of many sources of guns in Mexico, and a minor one at that.

Pictures of confiscated arms in the Mexican press routinely include grenades, rocket launchers and heavy machine guns, arms that aren’t in the US civilian inventory.

Finally, the proposed multiple-sale scheme places a significant burden on dealers and puts them at increased risk of prosecution for clerical errors if they fail to detect a repeat buyer in a timely fashion.

You can tell the ATF and Congress that you oppose the ATF’s overreach through any − or all − of the following ways:

1. Call the Office of Management and Budget, Office of Information and Regulation Affairs, Department of Justice, Desk Officer at (202) 395-6466.
2. E-mail Barbara A. Terrell, ATF, Firearms Industry Programs Branch at Barbara.Terrell@atf.gov
3. Call your Senators and Representative: United States Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121.
   There is no such thing as reasonable infringement on liberty.

About:
The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and with a historical perspective of the gun rights movement. The Firearms Coalition is a project of Neal Knox Associates, Manassas, VA. Visit: www.FirearmsCoalition.org

**Image: by Olegvolk.net

FirearmsCoalition.org

Washington, DC --(Ammoland.com)- If firearms were indeed as inherently dangerous as gun control advocates suggest, there should be millions of crimes, murders, suicides, and accidents involving firearms each year, and those numbers should be escalating since the total number of firearms and firearms owners have risen substantially over the past few years.

In reality, numbers of firearms related crime and accidents have steadily dropped while gun sales have gone through the roof and more states have liberalized laws dealing with the carry of arms in public. Independent, peer reviewed studies show that firearms are used 5 times more often to stop crime than to commit crime – and that doesn’t count police use or the deterrent factor of criminals knowing their intended victims might be armed.

Guns are used by private citizens to stop criminal activity some 2.5 million times each year and rarely do they even fire a shot doing it. Recreational shooters fire billions of rounds each year, but firearms injury accident numbers keep going down and are at record lows. Gun control laws only impact those who obey them – the law-abiding.

There is no logic – or evidence – to support restrictions on the good guys.

In the early 1970’s, when Neal Knox was editor and publisher of Rifle and Handloader magazines, he created a bumper sticker that posed the question, “Where Has a Gun Law Reduced Crime?” He knew that the answer to the question was “Nowhere.” Every credible study has reached that conclusion and that answer was borne out yet again in 2003 and 2004 respectively when the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, and the National Academy of Science both attempted to settle the issue once and for all. The CDC and NAS each set up panels of experts who conducted comprehensive reviews of all of the available research on gun control laws with the objective of identifying which specific strategies were most effective at reducing “gun violence” in crime, suicide, and accidents.

The two groups independently concluded that available data was insufficient to prove that any gun control laws, alone or combined, are effective at reducing criminal misuse of firearms, suicides using firearms, or firearms related injury accidents. Even though these organizations have track records of gun control advocacy, and the members of the panels were virtually unanimous in their personal support for gun control, they were still unable to locate credible evidence to demonstrate any positive effect from any gun control scheme.

The CDC and NAS panels reviewed over 250 published academic studies, almost 100 books, and nearly 50 government reports all covering some 80 different gun control schemes – from background checks and waiting periods to registration and outright bans on entire classes of firearms – some covering laws dating back 100 years or more. Had the subject of their inquiries been almost anything other than gun control, or the panels had been truly unbiased, the lack of supporting evidence would have been recognized as proof in itself and the panels would have reached the obvious conclusion that gun control laws do not work. That indeed they cannot work because they address tools not behavior or the social circumstances at the roots of that behavior. If gun control did work there would undoubtedly be enough evidence to allow these experts to reach a conclusion other than “inconclusive.” The experts’ inability to reach a positive conclusion is even more astounding when it is considered that the majority of the existing data has been generated by researchers who have publicly expressed a personal bias in favor of gun control and who were funded by organizations such as the Joyce and MacArthur foundations, which have gun control as part of their organizational agenda. The CDC and NAS panels’ conclusions of “inconclusive” reveal more about the researchers’ own bias than the causes and possible cures of criminal behavior.

One of the most difficult challenges of the gun rights movement is overcoming the emotional, gut reaction that people think of as “common sense.”

It is easy to assume that more gun control will result in less crime; it seems obvious. But the truth is counter-intuitive. In reality, more guns equal less crime while more restrictions result in higher crime. This is true because reasonable, responsible, law-abiding people remain reasonable, responsible, and law-abiding whether they have a gun or not, but when they do have a gun, they are better able to stop or prevent criminal activity. Criminals and idiots do what criminals and idiots do regardless of laws to the contrary and firearms restrictions merely guarantee them a safer working environment.

The truth is that there is no gun control law that actually works.

Gun control laws are wholly ineffective at reducing crime, suicide, or accidents, and they often snare innocents in their complicated red tape. They cost hundreds of millions of dollars in direct and indirect costs to taxpayers leaving fewer resources available for truly effective prevention programs. Advocates of gun control are long on emotion, but short on results. Citizens should demand proof of efficacy before funding or allowing any governmental agency to usurp personal liberties. Not only are gun control laws ineffective, they are counterproductive – not to mention unconstitutional.

Gun control is a crime.

About:
The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and with a historical perspective of the gun rights movement. The Firearms Coalition is a project of Neal Knox Associates, Manassas, VA. Visit: www.FirearmsCoalition.org

FirearmsCoalition.org

Manassas, VA --(AmmoLand.com)- The Firearms Coalition yesterday issued a scathing denunciation of legislation proposed by the National Rifle Association for the state of Iowa saying that Iowa is the latest instance of the NRA cavalry riding in to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

In Iowa, Sheriffs have broad discretion in the issuance or denial of permits to carry concealed weapons and Iowa GunVoters have been rallying support for removing that discretion and moving the state to a “shall issue” system.

In the last legislative session an Alaska-style bill, pushed by local grass roots rights activists led by the group Iowa Gun Owners, fell just one vote short of passage in the Iowa House. In response to that impressive achievement the NRA has decided to get involved in the state. They have proposed a bill that shifts the law from “may issue” to “shall issue,” but their bill also raises the minimum age from 18 to 21, retains extensive mandatory training requirements, enhances penalties for possession of a firearm while “under the influence” of alcohol – without defining exactly what “under the influence” means – and expands the list of things which make a person ineligible to receive a permit – including an arrest for a violent crime, even if the arrest was erroneous.

The combination of activated grass roots supporters, politicians fearful of Obama backlash in the November elections, and the NRA’s experience and resources should equate to a perfect storm for passage of serious rights reform legislation in Iowa. Instead NRA is lowering the bar with a bill that all but the most committed anti-rights politicians can happily support. Primary opposition to the NRA proposal is coming not from the gun haters, but from strong Second Amendment supporters.

Details of the Iowa problem, and NRA’s misguided solutions, can be found on The Firearms Coalition’s main web site at www.FirearmsCoalition.org.

About:
The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and with a historical perspective of the gun rights movement. The Firearms Coalition is a project of Neal Knox Associates, Manassas, VA. Visit: www.FirearmsCoalition.org

FirearmsCoalition.org

Phoenix, Arizona --(AmmoLand.com)- Thanksgiving is a time for reflection on our blessings, including the blessings of liberty and on the sacrifices our forebears made for us.

With that in mind, son Brandon and I wrapped up our Thanksgiving observations slung into battle rifles on the firing line at the beautiful, newly remodeled and re-christened Joe Foss Shooting Complex near Buckeye, Arizona.

As I concentrated on sight picture, breathing and trigger control, I was truly thankful.
Over the past four years, as regular readers of this space will be aware, a group that goes by the delightfully seditious name of “Revolutionary War Veterans Association” has spread across the country with a simple but ambitious goal: To turn the United States once again into a nation of riflemen. Barely on the radar of the mainstream shooting organizations, and totally off the major media’s screen, the RWVA’s Applessed Project has quietly grown at exponential rates.

The Appleseed shoots are superficially similar to any other shooting clinic. There’s a lot of shooting and a lot of discussion of sight picture, breathing and trigger control. But Appleseed adds another dimension: One of historical perspective. Between each relay, along with the shooting fundamentals, there’s a discourse on events in and around Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts on April 19 and 20, 1775. Along with the history lesson, comes a discussion of what it means to be a rifleman, what riflemen have meant to America, and what our rifles should mean to us.

It’s strong stuff. But there’s not a whiff of extremism. It’s simple application of the Second Amendment: The Right to Keep and Bear Arms only takes on meaning if we are skilled in the use of arms. Come to think of it, some politicians might consider the Appleseed message dangerous. Good. That’s exactly how they should perceive it.

The message is resonating – and gathering momentum. In 2006, the first year of the program, there were 18 events with just over 1000 participants. 2007, the year I shot my first Appleseed, saw 47 events and nearly 1900 participants and everyone was amazed at the growth of the project. In 2008 there were 138 events training some 3700 participants. 2009 should close out with nearly 400 events in 46 states training 10,000 participants. The goal for 2010 is to double 2009’s record.

This past October saw the biggest single event in Appleseed history when RWVA volunteer instructors trained some 600 members of the South Carolina National Guard at Ft. Stewart, Georgia. These citizen-soldiers had been working regular jobs but had been mobilized for deployment to Iraq. A member of the battalion staff did not feel that the troops had been adequately trained in riflery and asked the RWVA for assistance. National Guard troops view themselves as inheritors of the minuteman tradition, so the historical perspective of the program had special significance for these soldiers as they prepared for deployment.

The mechanics of the shoot are straightforward. The objective of the course is to get participants to a “Rifleman” level – that’s scoring a 210 or better out of a possible 250 on a modified Army Marksmanship Qualification Test (AQT) target. Most of the shooting is at an AQT target with multiple silhouettes scaled to simulate distances out to 400 yards. The reduced AQT target allows the entire course to be fired at 25 yards with any rifle from full-sized battle rifles to .22 caliber rimfires. The reduced range also allows for more shooting, and practice on the 25-yard course, with whatever rifle, has been proven to improve shooting at real distances with centerfire.

Brandon and I banged away at our targets with a couple of historic rifles, he with an M1 Garand, I with an M1903 Springfield. We had demonstrated early in the day that both rifles would shoot, turning in some promising groups, but neither of us managed to put together a string that would earn a Rifleman patch. But “a rifleman is persistent,” as the Appleseed instructors constantly reminded us. The day will come. Meantime, I’m going to invest in some battle sights and a sling for my 10/22.

The future of the Appleseed Project looks bright. With over 170 events already scheduled for 2010, there will be an Appleseed shoot within a few hours of just about anywhere in the lower 48 states. Check their calendar at http://www.appleseedinfo.org/ and start planning your Appleseed weekend. Get a few buddies together or take the family.

The cost is modest and the shooting instruction is outstanding, and geared to any level. But the bonus is the historical view that puts shooting in a context that “sportsmen” or competitive shooters may not have thought about. Shooting is not golf. Appleseed reminds participants of the purpose of the rifle: To secure liberty.

Neal Knox Associates – The most trusted name in the rights movement.

About:
The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and with a historical perspective of the gun rights movement.

FirearmsCoalition.org

Manassas, VA - There has been a close association between sexually transmitted diseases and the military for as long as the two have existed, but the focus of this article is not Venereal Disease, but a different kind of VD that has shocked the military community and the nation.

The VD which currently plagues the military and puts our soldiers at grave risk is the policy of Victim Disarmament which has been increasingly prevalent even as laws in the civilian world have been moving in the opposite direction.

While some have pointed to regulation changes during the Clinton administration as the turning point, VD on military bases has been the trend since at least the 1960’s and to a lesser extent even before that. In military society, so heavily steeped in discipline and control, it is only natural that those in power would be inclined to drift in the direction of micro-management and centralized control. Commanders in the modern military seem to have gravitated toward a paternalistic role and that paternalism runs all through the chain of command and seems to apply to all subordinates regardless of their age, rank, or experience.

When a Muslim major decided he was on the wrong side in the War on Terrorism and began shooting soldiers and civilian workers in a premeditated attack at a Ft. Hood processing center, we were all shocked. Shocked that anyone in the U.S. military could turn on his brothers- and sisters-in-arms with such viciousness. Shocked that a commissioned officer could hold such radical religious views and not be recognized as a threat.

But we were especially shocked that anyone could go on a killing spree in the middle of a busy Army base and not run into any armed resistance for over 10 minutes.
The public was dumbfounded to learn that virtually everyone on all military bases outside of war zones is required to disarm while on base. Even officers and senior NCOs who are licensed to carry concealed in the state where the base is located are forbidden to have a readily accessible firearm virtually anywhere on base. Only MP’s and contract security guards may legally go about a military installation armed and even they are generally forbidden to carry when not on duty.

But who could have imagined that anyone would ever dare to attack soldiers on an Army base? Well, just as the “unimaginable” idea of using commercial aircraft as guided weapons had been widely publicized in popular novels and was officially included in national threat assessments as a likely scenario, the idea of attacking personnel on a military installation was not novel or new. A group of home-grown wannabe Muslim terrorists made elaborate plans to do just that back in 2007. After their plot was uncovered, many in the rights community pointed out the huge vulnerability created by the Army’s Victim Disarmament policies and called for changes, at least to allow qualified officers and senior NCOs to keep weapons handy. Those calls went unheeded. Some commands went in the opposite direction with commanding officers tightening restrictions on weapons in base housing units and even forbidding soldiers from legally carrying when off-base and out of uniform.

In the wake of the atrocity at Ft. Hood the Army says it – along with the other branches – will be reviewing security policies and procedures. I don’t expect to see them give up their VD policies. It is much more likely that they will conclude that they need to hire more civilian security guards and perhaps implement some sort of alert system similar to those implemented by universities, based around text messages sent to cell phones.

After all, what if the Army allowed soldiers to be armed and they used them to commit crime, or to shoot each other over traffic disputes? What about the danger of police mistaking an armed defender for the active murderer or an armed defender accidentally shooting innocent bystanders?

We’ve heard all of the “what if” arguments in every state that has ever debated concealed carry legislation or talked about extending the right to carry to college campuses. For some reason the fact that none of the dire “what ifs” have ever materialized and that armed defense is consistently demonstrated to be safe and effective, just carries no weight with paternalistic authoritarians who don’t fully trust their charges.

More than two years after the Army received a dramatic warning about the vulnerability created by their VD policies, that vulnerability has been horrifically exploited. And in the face of that experience, soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines remain helpless in the face of threats of armed attack.

Unlike Venereal Disease, Victim Disarmament can be easily eradicated, particularly in the military. All it takes is the will and a little bit of trust.

Visit www.FirearmsCoalition.org where you can also order your copy of Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War.

To receive The Firearms Coalition’s bi-monthly newsletter, The Knox Hard Corps Report, write to PO Box 3313, Manassas, VA 20108.

About:
The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and with a historical perspective of the gun rights movement.
©Copyright 2009 Neal Knox Associates – The most trusted name in the rights movement.

FirearmsCoalition.org

Phoenix, AZ --(AmmoLand.com)- It’s a Republican sweep in Virginia. Bob McDonnell has the election locked up along with fellow Republicans winning the Lt. Governor and Attorney General offices. The Republican victory in Virginia was overwhelming, with the GOP netting a combined 60 percent of the vote over Democrats in the three races.

In New Jersey, an unpopular (and Brady Bunch-endorsed) Democrat lost to what passes for a conservative Republican in that part of the world.

Meanwhile in New York’s 23rd District, the Republican leadership had an opportunity to learn something about party discipline when their anointed candidate Dede Scozzafava, a genuinely liberal Republican, was pushed out of the race by an upstart conservative candidate who claimed Glenn Beck as his mentor. The Democrat appears to have won, but with the upstart Hoffman making a splash. The chin-stroking started immediately that the New York results are the harbinger of a gathering “civil war” within the Republican Party. Maybe.

The really good news is that this election may be the first green shoots of a renaissance of republican (lower-case R) politics. By a “republican renaissance” I mean that classical republican ideas like the rule of law, limited government with checks and balances, as laid out in the U.S. Constitution, may be gaining a new currency in the political marketplace.

It was Gerald Ford who accurately noted that, “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.” A smaller government promises less, but it is also less of a threat to individual liberty. A small federal government is not something that will happen overnight – frankly I doubt that I’ll see it in my lifetime. Even the “cuts” of the Reagan Revolution were only modest decreases in the rate of growth. The key questions moving forward are whether the Republican Party can field candidates to satisfy the growing demand for limited government, and whether Democratic voters are willing to support candidates who will rein in government expansion, reversing the trend toward federal control. Few viable limited-government candidates have appeared from either party, but demand should eventually generate supply.

To make sure that yesterday’s election results become an ongoing trend in the right direction, GunVoters must get involved now. The first place to start is www.GunVoter.org. See what information is there for your state and what is missing and then start trying to fill the gaps. Get together with your club or state association’s political guy. Take him to lunch and ask questions. Find out who’s running, who deserves help, and whose balloon needs popping. Get involved with your local political party of choice so you can participate in selecting candidates from the ground floor. When you find answers, the next step is to go back to GunVoter.og and build the knowledgebase so others can be more effective.

Keep in mind that although federal elections are important, it’s in state legislatures and city councils that tomorrow’s senators and representatives are groomed. You can wield much more influence in those races and with those candidates than you can in federal campaigns.

As my brother Jeff likes to say, little politicians grow up to be big politicians – catch them while they’re small.

“The Belgian Corporal,” the story I chose as the prologue to the recently released compilation of Neal Knox’s writing, Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War, is a wrenching story of a Nazi atrocity in Belgium and a cautionary tale regarding the dangers of gun registration. The story was told to Dad by a Belgian-American corporal who was with him in the Texas National Guard. We released the story on the Internet (www.NealKnox.com) when the book came out and it has gained a gratifying amount of circulation.

While the praise has been overwhelming, there are some dissenting voices suggesting that the massacre in the story never happened – at least not in Belgium. We have no way of knowing for sure, though I continue to research into it. What we do know for certain is the impression that the story made on a young (just turned nineteen) Neal Knox. For him, the Belgian Corporal’s story rang true. He believed it in his bones and it changed his life.

If you haven’t ordered your copy of Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War, I hope you will. It’s raw history written as it happened by someone who was often a key participant. I can’t promise you’ll read a story that changes your life, but I’ll bet you’ll learn something. To order a copy, go to www.NealKnox.com or www.FirearmsCoalition.org.

To receive The Firearms Coalition’s bi-monthly newsletter, The Knox Hard Corps Report, write to PO Box 3313, Manassas, VA 20108.

Neal Knox Associates – The most trusted name in the rights movement.

About:
The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and with a historical perspective of the gun rights movement.

Phoenix, Arizona --(AmmoLand.com)- People who “have nothing to hide” are often quite happy to answer any questions and consent to any intrusion a police officer might ask of them. They may even invite officers to “look around” if they want to. If you ask a good defense attorney how much you should cooperate with police, particularly when they are conducting an investigation in which you could possibly be a suspect, he will tell you “Not at all.” Don’t give them one word more than you must and never give them permission to search your car, look through your home, or examine any of your guns.

David Olofson took the “nothing to hide” approach. When the police confiscated one of his firearms from a friend he had loaned it to, Olofson freely chatted with police about how many guns he had, how many he has built, how he helps people to buy and assemble their own AR-platform rifles, and quite a bit more. David Olofson’s loquacious ways probably helped to put him in prison for 30 months for illegally transferring an unregistered machine gun – that was actually just a malfunctioning semi-auto – and his case has set a very dangerous precedent which threatens all gun owners.

On the other side of the coin is Albert Kwan. A Seattle Class III firearms dealer and collector, Kwan followed the path of minimal cooperation. When agents asked him about a pair of Makarov barrels they thought he might have bought and asked to examine any Makarovs or Makarov parts he might have, Albert told them he had only purchased one barrel and that they should get a warrant if they wanted to examine it or anything else he owned. Kwan says he wasn’t trying to hide anything; he just wanted to make sure his rights were respected and his privacy protected. Unfortunately, under-cooperating can be as problematic as over-cooperating.

Albert Kwan’s lack of cooperation “raised red flags” with agents investigating a murder case – the murder of a federal prosecutor. Albert was never a suspect in the murder, but agents thought he might have sold the gun, or at least the barrel, that the murderer used and they wanted to know where that barrel had gone. When he refused to let agents look at his guns and take his Makarovs, agents’ were peeved and they began trying to force Kwan to tell them what they wanted to hear – something Kwan has consistently maintained that he is unable to do because he says he never had a second barrel.

The persecution of Albert Kwan escalated from agents knocking on his door and asking a few questions, to agents serving a search warrant on his home and business confiscating firearms, ammunition, computers, and business records, to his arrest as a “material witness” in a murder investigation, and his eventual prosecution on trumped-up violations of the National Firearms Act. The ATF claimed that a legal, “de-milled,” semi-auto M14 was actually a machine gun, and that Kwan’s possession of a detachable shoulder stock for one of his legally owned submachine guns made a semi-auto pistol he owned, which could also accept the detachable stock, an unregistered “short-barreled rifle.” Both accusations blatantly disregarded ATF policy and established legal precedents.

When the jury learned that ATF had to extensively machine and add extra parts to Kwan’s M14 to make it fire full-auto, they rejected that charge, but prosecutors were able to convince them on the short-barreled rifle charge. Then the judge discovered that ATF and prosecutors had misled him and the jury about the stock and its multiple applications so he took the unusual step of overturning the conviction. But the government still didn’t want to let go of Albert Kwan so they appealed the reversal, but Kwan won the appeal in November of 2008. Since then Kwan has been going through legal channels trying to recover his property. The ordeal has cost him more than three years, his Army Reserve retirement, his firearms business, his commercial real estate business, his reputation, and tens of thousands of dollars above and beyond his life savings.

So, how much should one cooperate with the police? The principled answer remains the same – cooperate only as much as the law requires. But in a world where federal prosecutors are willing and able to use the system to retaliate against people who don’t cooperate, the principled response carries its own set of risks. That shouldn’t be the case in a nation based on laws. And it begs the question of just what kind of nation we are becoming.

Christmas is coming! Make sure the next generation fighting for our rights understands the struggles, successes, and mistakes of the last generation. Give the gift of knowledge; Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War. Available now at www.NealKnox.com.

FirearmsCoalition.org

Washington, DC --(AmmoLand.com)- The US Senate has voted 68-30 in favor of a measure which would deny $1.6 Billion taxpayer dollars for the beleaguered Amtrak passenger train system unless they change their “No Guns” policy.

Since the Madrid commuter train bombing in 2004 Amtrak has maintained a policy of no guns or weapons on their trains – even locked in checked baggage. The amendment passed by the Senate today was sponsored by Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) says that Amtrak must accept checked baggage containing firearms or starter pistols as long as the passenger declares the firearm at the time of check in and the gun is unloaded and locked in a hard-sided case. The measure also provides for the lawful transport of ammunition in checked baggage.

Opponents raised objections based on the cost of implementing the liberalized regulations, but those arguments rang hollow and the measure passed easily.

Now for the shenanigans:
Even though the amendment passed easily – with a few surprising (and suspicious) votes in favor – this is not a done deal. Since the Senate version of the underlying appropriations bill is now different from the version passed in the House, there must be a Reconciliation Conference to bring the two versions into line. For a conference, both houses select a number of representatives who are supposed to go sit down together and hash out their differences, settling on a final bill they believe will be acceptable in both houses. That version of the bill is then sent to the floors of the House and the Senate where it receives an up or down vote. No amendments are accepted for a reconciled bill. (Read More and see Vote Count)

About:
The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and with a historical perspective of the gun rights movement. Visit: www.firearmscoalition.org

FirearmsCoalition.org

Manassas, Virginia – -(AmmoLand.com)- As we reported in our bi-monthly newsletter, The Knox Hard Corps Report, voting records, especially those for final passage, don’t tell the full story of where our elected servants stand on a particular issue. And the fact is that those servants occasionally take pains to conceal their true position from the people who sent them to office.

This year’s poster boy for obfuscated voting is Senator Mark Pryor a second-term Democrat from Arkansas.

In the July Senate vote for nationwide concealed-carry reciprocity, Pryor first voted against the measure but then, when Republicans Lugar of Indiana and Voinovich of Ohio cast their votes against their party line, he changed his vote to a nominally pro-gun vote.

Pryor’s changed vote gives the Democrats twenty allegedly pro-gun vote that they can point to when the inevitable charges come that the Democratic Party is the anti-gun party. It also gave them a pair of anti-gun Republican votes they can point to when Republicans try to claim a pro-gun mantle. In other words, it keeps the whole issue foggy and enables politicians to come down firmly on whichever side of the fence seems most advantageous at the time. I don’t know, but I would bet that had another Republican defected, another Democrat would have seen the light and voted for passage.

Muddy or downright misleading votes are a tradition as old as public deliberation itself. My father, Neal Knox, focused much of his reporting on the play-by-play of such votes, particularly on the seemingly minor procedural and committee votes, for that’s where the legislation that eventually makes headlines is formed. One column that I included in Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War, the recently released compilation of his writing, was especially instructive. The piece is from October of 1984 and is titled “How To Read A Congressional Vote.”

The vote in the 1984 column was a procedural vote on whether to consider the McClure-Volkmer Firearms Owners Protection Act as an amendment to a massive must-pass appropriations bill. The procedural vote passed 63-31. Focusing on the 31 Nay votes against accepting the amendment for consideration, he found that eight of the Senators routinely opposed any “non-germane” amendments to appropriations bills. He set those votes aside since they were principled votes and had history to back it up.

The remaining 23 votes were another matter. Those senators had voted to consider another similarly “non-germane” amendment which they wanted to pass, but they voted against the pro-gun McClure-Volkmer bill which they did not want to pass. Yet a couple of days later, half a dozen of the senators (among them now-Vice-President Joe Biden) voted for the McClure-Volkmer bill on a meaningless reconsideration vote. Even more misleading, at least three of these same senators had co-sponsored McClure-Volkmer in its standalone form.

In fact, co-sponsoring legislation is not a sure sign of support. Throughout most of the fight over McClure-Volkmer it had the co-sponsorship of a majority of the Senate, yet the bill stayed bottled up in committee. When Neal Knox started to press the Republican leadership to get the bill to the floor, he ran straight into a brick wall of opposition. That’s another story, but it’s also included in the book, by the way.

In addition to the late-changing vote and the all-important procedural and committee votes, there are other ways that a member of Congress can leave a record that he hopes will be more palatable than the positions he actually holds. One is “taking a powder” – literally not showing up for a vote, or voting Present which is a non-vote. Both John McCain and Barack Obama caught flak as senators for either failing to show up or for voting Present. But they were able to avoid hard votes that way.

Another game politicians play is to “pair” a vote with someone across the aisle, agreeing to cross-cancel each other. Such pairings are often orchestrated by the leadership to give cover to vulnerable party members and can give the appearance of a closely divided Congress where in reality the deal was in the bag long before the quorum call went out.

The brutal fact is that most elected servants, like any other salesman, will show you the face and the record they think you want to see. Citizens can counteract the obfuscation with careful scrutiny. Knowing how to decipher the record – read Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War – and reporting what you discover – by posting questions, answers, and discussion on GunVoter.org – shines light on the shenanigans and serves as a force multiplier in the gun rights war.

About:
The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and with a historical perspective of the gun rights movement. Visit: www.firearmscoalition.org

FirearmsCoalition.org

Manassas, Virginia – -(AmmoLand.com)- When football legend Vince Lombardi famously gathered his team to talk about fundamentals, he went to the most basic level: “Gentlemen,” he said, “this is a football.” Like Coach Lombardi, I want to get back to basics. In politics, just as in football, “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” When it comes to effective political activism that quote needs to be turned around; “Voting isn’t the only thing.

Voting is everything.” While there are many important things that rights organizations and activists do, it all boils down to the one thing: The Vote. The vote is both the object and the instrument of political power and if we can’t wield it effectively, all of our other efforts are useless.

The ultimate objective of the gun rights movement is to win legislative victories to keep politics and politicians away from our guns. To achieve this goal, organizations like The Firearms Coalition must do three things: Recruit, Inform, and Activate. The three are symbiotic, each feeding the other. In its simplest form it translates to: Build a List of names, Tell them What’s Going On, and Encourage them to…

Take some Action.

The actions we ask them to take are things like recruiting friends, contacting politicians, and sending money, but the most important activity we encourage is getting involved in elections and voting.

The two activities which seem to garner the most attention are sending money and contacting politicians. Indeed, some organizations seem more interested in collecting money than anything else, and many activists believe that contacting politicians is the key to victory. Both are missing the mark. Money is simply the fuel that drives the Recruiting, Informing, and Activating. Contacting politicians, while important, only wields as much power as the threats or promises it conveys for the next election cycle. Politicians’ overriding objective is to gain and retain power – to be elected. There is only one way to reliably influence a politician: Impact His Ability to be Elected. The power of our movement is in the number of people we can generate to vote our way in an election. All of the other activities are important, but they mean little if we don’t have the votes to effectively reward or punish politicians on Election Day.

So why am I talking about the importance of voting when we’re in an off-off-year election year when there will be no presidential or senate races and only a handful of special congressional elections? Because now is the time to begin preparing for next year and for 2012.

There are important statewide races this November in Virginia and New Jersey and GunVoters could make significant gains in both states. Those elections, and the special congressional and mayors races, will send a message to the politicians for 2010. Whether the message is to start working to earn GunVoter support, or that they need not worry about GunVoters, depends on how we perform in this year’s elections.

In order to make a serious impact this year, and be ready to roll out in force in 2010, GunVoters need to gear up now. We must educate ourselves about the races, the candidates, their records, and their promises and we need to be building networks and support systems to be ready to mobilize on Election Day.

GunVoters can get the information they need, share the information they have, get valuable tips and insights, and build useful networks with likeminded people in their own states and around the country by joining and participating in the discussions at www.GunVoter.org.

The site has over 1000 registered members and thousands of discussion topics along with historical documents and other resources. There are dedicated areas for discussions of Tom Gresham’s popular Gun Talk radio show as well as links and discussions about articles from Gun Rights Examiners. GunVoter.org also offers dedicated forum space to grass roots groups and associations. If you’re a Facebook user, be sure to become a fan of the GunVoter.org fan page and take the “Are You a GunVoter” poll.

If you have never been to GunVoter.org, or haven’t been there recently, please stop by and join the discussion. If your group or club needs a web site, forum, or other technical assistance, we can help and we can set you up with your own area on GunVoter.org absolutely free. Drop me a note on the GunVoter site and we’ll discuss ways we can help.

The power of the “gun lobby” is GunVoters. Share the power. Participate in www.GunVoter.org.

Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War is now available for immediate delivery!

Visit www.NealKnox.com to order your copy today!

About:
The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and with a historical perspective of the gun rights movement.

FirearmsCoalition.org

Manassas, Virginia – -(TheTacticalWire.com)- The Firearms Coalition will celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of its founding with the release of Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War. The book is a compilation of columns, articles and essays by The Firearms Coalition’s late founder Neal Knox. A championship-level rifleman, Knox was publisher of Rifle and Handloader magazines in 1978 when Harlon Carter brought him to Washington to head the National Rifle Association’s legislative efforts. At NRA, Knox became the architect of the bill that would become the McClure-Volkmer Firearms Owners Protection Act which reformed some of the most onerous parts of the 1968 Gun Control Act. Knox later served on the NRA Board of Directors and as an officer of the Association.

Chris Knox, eldest son of Neal, selected the pieces from some forty years worth of writing, adding annotations to frame each piece in its historical context.

“I’m really pleased to finally get this collection in print,” said Chris Knox. “It’s vital to the gun rights movement that we have a historical record. Dad’s perspective is important because he was in the middle of every major fight for the Second Amendment stretching back to the mid-sixties. The story of his career is the story of the gun rights movement in America.” Much of the material was previously printed, but several pieces are seeing print for the first time. This marks the first time that Knox’s writing has been collected in one place.

“Chris has pulled together and organized the essence of Dad’s writing between 1966 and 2000,” said Jeff Knox, who works full-time as Director of The Firearms Coalition. “This book is a diary of the Second Amendment movement through some of its most crucial recent years.”

The Knox brothers expect controversy over the book, as it includes one section devoted to Neal Knox’s often-contentious relations with the NRA. “We’re not looking to stir controversy for its own sake,” said Chris. “The history is controversial, but it’s important, and a fair amount of it has been forgotten, glossed over, ignored, or even covered up.

The section on the NRA is only one part of a wide-ranging collection of topics including practical advice for the grassroots Second Amendment activist, philosophical principles, how the background of the general culture affects gun rights, and several pieces that establish Neal Knox’s place in the gun rights movement. Ordering instructions are available on The Firearms Coalition web site.

The group’s web site is at http://www.firearmscoalition.org/

About:
The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and with a historical perspective of the gun rights movement.