EDITOR'S NOTE: Occasionally one of our editors feels very strongly about a topic. Today, Tactical Wire editor Rich Grassi has some thoughts (and a goodly helping of tough love) for all of us in the outdoor community.
Without descending into the current political morass of charge/counter-charge, extremist vs. extremist, agenda and charisma driven politics, I think it's time for a block of voters to coalesce - the people of the outdoors.
Yes, it sounds like interest group politics. Extremist whack-job pseudojournalists who exist only in the NYC-DC Bubble and on our TV screens label us as "special interests" and "gun lobby." I prefer the term organized interest group, as that's where we should be - an organized interest. Our interests, like our country, is diverse. We need to organize to be effective. (Remember the TEA Party? Pretty good organization for an outfit with no discernible leader, pretty effective at turning elections around.)
We have traditionalist hunters, birders, archers, collectors with their closed shop. We have the pseudo- (and/or former) military and police types with their own special lingo and mode of dress. There are cowboy-action shooters, USPSA and IDPA shooters, trap-skeet and sporting clay shooters. There's the "gun guy" every locality has and the concealed handgun licensee. Don't forget Class III aficionados who cheerfully send postal money orders for the ATF tax stamp which is permission to own what the Second Amendment says we can own absent taxation.
They divide us, the cynical gun-grabbing scumbags who gleefully play in the blood of crime victims, tragedy victims and suicides. They ask only for "reasonable regulations," compromise on things upon which we all agree. "We all" in the context of agreement amounts to "reasonable citizens concerned more for the welfare of the community" than the idiosyncratic proclivities of the "gun guy."
"Let us get the real killing machines off the street, you know, assault weapons(sic)."
Translation: "Let's get the ugly guns that look military and get rid of them for you." You incompetent child, don't you know? You're more likely to shoot yourself or a loved one than a criminal offender.
"Assault weapons" is a term popularized by plagiarist and serial-gaffe-master Joe Biden from the late 80s. Needing something to hang his hat on, since his hair plugs needed to "breathe," he got the concept from others - surprise! - and tried to get a ban passed as early as 1988.
"Reasonable people" agreed with it. Who the hell needs a thirty round magazine? (Answer: someone who misses a lot.) Even Ronald Reagan, as he slipped under the bonds of reason-killing Alzheimer's, agreed with it.
As recently as two years ago, a congregation of firearms media brought together by one little conglomerate split over the concept of Modern Sporting Rifles.
"They're making a big mistake," it was said of one of the oldest firearms firms on Earth. "Going to making AR15s."
A look of disgust crossed the scribe's face. "Who can have any pride of ownership in something like that?"
Who indeed? It's a tool, not a work of art like the writer's Classic Sporting Rifle - a modern bolt-action rifle, wonderfully barreled, highly polished and deeply blued, nestled in beautifully figured Circassian walnut. Who wouldn't have pride of ownership in such a magnificent "extension of the owner's will"? -- Well, maybe someone like that gun-grabbing skunk Chuck Schumer.
You people need to figure out who your enemies are and you better do it right quick. It's not people who shoot Modern Sporting Rifles. It's not mall ninjas, tac-tards, military arms enthusiasts, gun school attendees or makers of "ugly guns" with "standard capacity" magazines (standard for the design of the piece).
Your enemies are the ones smiling at you at the cocktail parties, telling you that the kind of trash who'd own an AR15 is doing nothing but taking your sport down. "They stand in the way of "reasonable gun controls.""
Let's have no misconceptions: that smiling weasel looking at you over the martini doesn't like you any better than he likes me. You're something he stepped in out in the yard; something he can't get off his shoe. But he's not getting rid of people like me. There are more AR15s in private hands now than ever before. Hell, there may be more ARs and AKs in private hands in the US than there are bolt action rifles.
Besides, reasonable gun control means we'd have to take those "long range sniper rifles" away from you. You're such children.
Besides, you don't need them to hunt ducks.
-- Rich Grassi
(By the way: shotguns go next!)
