From the NRA:
As we predicted, the anti-Second Amendment community has employed the disgraceful tactic of exploiting our nation`s fear over terrorism to promote attacks on our Right to Keep and Bear Arms. On September 25, the Boston Globe published a grossly misleading attack on gun shows by syndicated columnist Tom Oliphant-an attack clearly inspired by a “fact sheet” provided to him by the anti-gun organization called Americans for Gun Safety (AGS). Oliphant and AGS seem to have collaborated in a deliberate attempt to inject the word “terrorist” into the gun show debate by digging up a case the FBI began investigating more than a year ago. Oliphant and AGS attempted to use the case of a convicted felon, Ali Boumelhem, suspected of going to gun shows to purchase firearms intended to be shipped overseas for use in terrorist activities as a reason for promoting legislation that would shut down gun shows as we know them today. The facts do not support the anti-gunners, though, because the system worked-the suspect was arrested, prosecuted, and convicted in federal court.
In order to foster the ruse that there was a link between gun shows and terrorism, AGS selectively edited material it sent journalists and members of Congress to try to create a nexus for its agenda of placing new restrictions on law-abiding gun owners. The AGS “fact sheet” mailing states an FBI informant previously had seen Boumelhem in Beirut unloading shipments of weapons and explosives. The Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, which AGS cites as its source, is much more specific, saying the FBI informant “had seen Boumelhem in Beirut unloading shipments of automatic weapons, explosives, grenades and rocket launchers.” Clearly, “automatic weapons, explosives, grenades and rocket launchers” was changed to “weapons and explosives” by AGS, knowing full well that none of those items can be bought or sold at any gun show anywhere in America.
AGS, the recent creation of anti-gun billionaire (and a past board member of the gun-ban lobby formally known as HCI) Andrew McKelvey, was conceived as a public relations ploy to push the same old gun control agenda behind the facade of “third way” centrist rhetoric. And despite its carefully focus-grouped moniker, McKelvey`s creation has zero Americans for members and nothing to do with gun safety programs.
AGS is joined in its shameless exploitation of tragedy by McKelvey`s old friends at HCI. But Sarah Brady`s gun-ban lobby took Oliphant`s column a step further, and is using it to promote the registration of all law-abiding gun purchasers. But even more shamelessly than AGS, which refuses to publicly admit its true national agenda is the licensing and registration of all gun owners, HCI has further expanded the exploitation of the tragic events of September 11. Virtually every release from the gun-ban lobby concerning the recent terrorist attacks-attacks, we should all remember, that did not involve any firearms-has included a pitch promoting its anti-gun agenda. Even a recent release regarding the discussion of arming airline pilots as a possible safeguard against terrorist hijackings saw the gun-ban lobby`s president, Michael Barnes, include a pitch for registering gun owners.
In the days and weeks to come, Congress will consider many proposals that seek to ensure America`s safety from terrorists, but promoting attacks on legal gun shows and pushing registration schemes for law-abiding gun owners have no place in this discussion. Be sure to let your federal lawmakers know that the debate over legislative attacks on legal gun shows, such as S. 767, introduced by U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.), and S. 890, introduced by U.S. Senators Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), have no place in an appropriate congressional debate on the threat of terrorism. Be sure to contact your U.S. Senators, at (202) 224-3121, and your U.S. Representative, at (202) 225-3121, and urge them to do everything possible to end the threat of terrorism, but not at the expense of our freedom. You can also find contact information for your federal lawmakers by using the “Write Your Reps” tool found at http://www.NRAILA.org.
For the complete text of Oliphant’s dishonest article click here, but have a barf bag ready.
Bud Link’s Response to Oliphant’s drivel
Mr. Oliphant:
Are you serious? Do you think a couple of terrorists here could supply the movement in any serious way from gun shows, background check or not?
Do you really think American street prices, plus trans-continental shipping, plus the costs of living here long enough to buy very large numbers of arms, make these arms cheaper than they are in Middle-Eastern arms bazaars (both literal and figurative bazaars)? Do you really think they don’t have sources of free arms from the national armories of Syria, Lebanon, Libya, et al? What about China?
What about the practical issues of buying, say, 10,000 AK-47s one, two, or even ten at a time? Then crating and shipping them? And getting them through the necessary paperwork? The time involved alone is staggering. And it would have to be repeated again and again to make up for field attrition.
I’ve read reports of AK-47s being sold in the Middle East for as little as $15.00. You can’t buy a magazine for one for that price in the U.S., thanks to the Brady Law. The idea gun shows are an important source of arms is absurd.
You wrote: “…easy for terrorists to shop for the very instruments of their business.” Wait a minute: the instruments they used were airline tickets, box cutters, and un-armed American passengers, disarmed by the very “security” measures that are demonstrably useless. The first Trade Center bomber’s “instruments” were a rental truck, fuel oil The last and most powerful of their weapons was this: the willingness of Americans to discard their freedom and submit, sheep-like, to the decimation of their rights. It’s a weapon you want to wield, sir.
You also wrote: “…it’s not too much to insist that we should make it much harder for terrorists to shop for weapons in this country.” And just what do you say to the sale by the Clinton Administration to high-end computers, fiber-optic secure communications technology, and so much more to China and others?
BTW–none of the September 11th terrorists used firearms of any sort. Remember? But you can bet your gluteus maximus they made great use of the frequency-skipping radios sold by Bill Clinton, and by the bushel basket, to Syria.
Of course, you make the same old error: you write as though the material object, a firearm, were the source of evil. It isn’t. And no law nor “security measure” will stop evil hearts willing to die to reach a goal. Either your reasoning powers are minute in that you don’t see this, or your goals and objects are not what you claim. Hmmm.
Last, you wrote: “…after repeated warnings, homeland defense of our citizen front line is on its way to creation.” Mr. Oliphant, you’re wrong yet again. Men much wiser than I (maybe even wiser than you?) established our “homeland defense” policy well over 200 years ago. It reads: “A well-regulated [meaning competent] Militia [meaning armed citizens], being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
If you think it laughable to consider the Second Amendment in this way, remember the Japanese reaction at the idea of invading California: they rejected the idea out of hand, realizing they’d find a well-armed populace.
Well, sir? Defend your claims, I say. Defend them if you can.
Bud Link
Related Links:
MICHAEL MOORE HAS AN EPIPHANY
“I cannot go to work. But I have a film to finish. Our editor has been unable to make it in from New Jersey, but he is there now waiting for some word on what to do. I can’t even think about this movie. I don’t WANT to think about it because if I think about it I will have to face an ugly truth that has been gnawing through my head… This started out as a documentary on gun violence in America, but the largest mass murder in our history was just committed — without the use of a single gun! Not a single bullet fired! No bomb was set off, no missile was fired, no weapon (i.e., a device that was solely and specifically manufactured to kill humans) was used. A box cutter! — I can’t stop thinking about this. A thousand gun control laws would not have prevented this massacre. What am I doing?” — Michael Moore, gun control advocate who badgered K-Mart into stopping the sale of pistol ammunition http://www.michaelmoore.com/2001_0922.html
Americans for the Protection of Terrorists and Violent Criminals
http://ww2.americansforgunsafety.com/
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