The Firearms Equality Movement

The Foundation

"[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." --Tench Coxe

Inspiration

"[A] growing number of firearm companies have suspended the sale of guns to states, counties, cities and municipalities that restrict their citizens' rights to own them. In just two weeks, the number of companies participating in what has been named the 'Firearms Equality Movement,' has more than tripled from 34 companies to 118. The Police Loophole lists every company and links to the statements that each has released regarding their new policies. Wilson Combat, a custom pistol manufacturer located in Berryville, Arkansas, joined the movement on February 28 stating the following: 'Wilson Combat will no longer provide any products or services to any State Government imposing legislation that infringes on the second amendment rights of its law abiding citizens. This includes any Law Enforcement Department, Law Enforcement Officers, or any State Government Entity or Employee of such an entity. This also applies to any local municipality imposing such infringements. ... Wilson Combat will in NO way support the government of these states or their anti-gun agenda that only limits the rights of law-abiding citizens. Wilson Combat will continue to supply any product and/or service they can legally sell in these states to all non-government affiliated citizens.'" --CNS News' Gregory Gwyn-Williams Jr.

Re: The Left

"The House Republican Study Committee (RSC) has launched a Second Amendment Initiative for the 113th Congress under the leadership of Indiana Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Third District) to counter ... President Barack Obama's 'out-of-touch agenda' on gun control. In a press release, RSC Chairman Rep. Steve Scalise (R-Indiana) asserted that the president's 'radical anti-gun agenda is a threat to our constitutional right to keep and bear arms.' ... The president ... has reined in major gun prohibition groups to concentrate on pushing new measures, including so-called 'universal background checks' and a ban on so-called 'assault weapons' and their original capacity magazines. ... In exchange for what amounts to obedience to the Obama agenda, these groups, Politico reported, have 'a voice in the discussions, a role in whatever final agreement is made and weekly meetings at the White House.' ... But House Republicans may stand in the way with this newly-created Second Amendment Initiative. 'As the President continues his aggressive gun control campaign,' Rep. Stutzman said in a statement, 'Republicans need to stand and defend our right to bear arms now more than ever. ... The RSC's Second Amendment Initiative will help equip conservatives in Congress to defeat the President's crusade for ineffective and unconstitutional gun controls.'" --author and gun-rights advocate Dave Workman

Government

"Back in the Nineties, everyone was worried about militias and survivalists, who lived in what were invariably described as 'compounds,' and not in the Kennedys-at-Hyannis sense. And, every so often, one of these compound-dwellers would find himself besieged by a great tide of federal alphabet soup, agents from the DEA, ATF, FBI and maybe even RRB. There was a guy named Randy Weaver, who lost his wife, son and dog to the guns of federal agents, was charged and acquitted in the murder of a deputy marshal and wound up getting a multimillion dollar settlement from the Department of Justice. Before he zipped his lips on grounds of self-incrimination, the man who wounded Weaver and killed his wife, an FBI agent named Lon Horiuchi, testified that he opened fire because he thought the Weavers were about to fire on a surveillance helicopter. When you consider the resources brought to bear against a nobody like Randy Weaver for no rational purpose, is it really so 'far-fetched' to foresee the Department of Justice deploying drones to the Ruby Ridges and Wacos of the 2020s? ... In the Droneworld we have built for the 'war on terror,' we can't see the forest because we're busy tracking every spindly sapling. When the same philosophy is applied on the home front, it will not be pretty." --columnist Mark Steyn

Essential Liberty

"Anonymous administration insiders claim that the president personally approves every name on the White House kill list. According to the tortured language of an undated 16-page Justice Department white paper that was leaked, 'it would be lawful for the United States to conduct a lethal operation outside the United States against a U.S. citizen who is a senior, operational leader of al-Qa'ida or an associated force of al-Qa'ida without violating the Constitution.' ... Most troubling, the white paper reduces due process to a determination made by 'an informed, high-level official of the U.S. government ... that the targeted individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States.' Though the document lists other restrictions -- e.g., capture must be infeasible -- and purports to limit 'lethal operations' against American citizens to those involved with al-Qaida 'in a foreign country,' it does not define 'imminent threat' and is silent about killing citizens here at home. In short, it raises more questions than it answers. What about American citizens, overseas or here, believed to be affiliated with other threatening organizations besides al-Qaida -- such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Jihad? Who decides whether capture is feasible or not? Do we really want to establish a precedent that an American president or any 'informed, high-level official of the U.S. government' can serve as chief prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner for American citizens? If so, who will hold him or her accountable?" --columnist Oliver North

Opinion in Brief

"The genius of Rand Paul's [filibuster] effort was similar to the partial-birth abortion fight -- it focused on a narrow, rare circumstance so outlandish that supporting it marks you as a kook. That only works, of course, if your opponents stick to their outlandish position -- that, for instance, it's okay to deliver a full-term baby backwards, then crack its skull open and vacuum out its brain. The administration walked right into this problem when Eric Holder repeatedly refused to say the president was prohibited by the Constitution from assassinating Americans in the United States when there was no attack imminent. Unlike the partial-birth abortion issue, the White House has finally conceded the point, but the political damage to Obama has been done. And the filibuster's energizing and uniting effect for conservatives and libertarians is also a fact. People who Stand with Rand will disagree -- among themselves and even with the senator -- about many of the specifics of our policy on drones. I, for one, think Awlaki had it coming and if there's any more like him hiding in Yemen or elsewhere, kill them too. But the Senate, or part of it at least, has finally stood up and said there really is a limit to a president's power -- that we're still a republic, not a principate." --National Review's Mark Krikorian

The Gipper

"I think all of us are agreed that war is probably man's greatest stupidity and I think peace is the dream that lives in the heart of everyone wherever he may be in the world, but unfortunately, unlike a family quarrel, it doesn't take two to make a war. It only takes one, unless the other one is prepared to surrender at the first hint of force." --Ronald Reagan

For the Record

"One thing nearly everybody agrees upon is that the 'sequester' is a silly sideshow to the real challenge facing America: unsustainable spending on entitlements. ... The system we are trying to perpetuate was created for the explicit benefit of the so-called greatest generation, the most coddled and cared for cohort in American history. I don't mean to belittle or demean the heroic efforts and sacrifices of those who served in World War II. But the idea that a whole generation deserves credit for what only some did is little more than an attempt to buy glory on the cheap. One of the egalitarian precepts that all Americans are supposed to subscribe to is the idea that one citizen isn't more worthy than another, simply by accident of birth. If you stormed the beaches of Normandy, you are due praise and honor. If you were simply born the same year as those who stormed the beaches, you're no more deserving of praise than someone born of any other generation. ... I have neither the space nor the inclination to pronounce on what was good or bad about all this. But as Washington grapples with the legacy costs of the 'greatest generation' ... it is at least worth recognizing that the government and the culture designed to benefit one generation has come at the cost of those that come after it." --columnist Jonah Goldberg

Political Futures

"Barack Obama knows how to do one thing: elect Barack Obama to public office. ... Obama certainly doesn't know how to govern effectively; take away a Congress that will rubber-stamp the Democratic agenda and he flails about. He's so bad at this, in fact, that when confronted with a situation where all he had to do was do nothing to fulfill a campaign promise (the tax cuts) we somehow ended up with a situation where Obama gave in on 98% of those tax cuts and voluntarily signed up to take the blame for the AMT fix. In short: Obama was woefully unprepared for the Presidency, and he hasn't really spent the last four years trying to catch up. Instead, he goes from situation to situation either trying to recast the problem in ways that he does have some skill in (permanent campaigning for office), or else... flail about on the scene while hitting people's buttons quickly and/or at random, in the hopes that eventually the laws of probability will allow him to bull on through anyway." --Hot Air's Allahpundit

Reader Comments

"Obama's 'Republican Sequester' 2014 Endgame was an excellent column and right on the money. I agree with everything Mark Alexander stated including going on the offensive. Each and every so-called sequester action should have a response from Congress. This should be a PR nightmare for the POTUS and Democrats if done right. That includes bills to actually cut what should have been cut instead of letting the POTUS do so." --David in Lonsdale, Minnesota

"Mark, I fear we've passed a tipping point. I fear that we have too many 'useful idiots' on the 'federal plantation' living amongst us which may prevent tipping the scale back in favor or Liberty and Rule of Law. We must trumpet our horns and clash our cymbals. We can no longer be the 'silent majority' because I fear we are no longer a majority. We need to be a 'squeaky wheel' and pursue the 'grease.' We must prevail or die trying. In the words of Samuel Adams, 'If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom -- go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!'" --Mike in People's Republic of Maryland

"Mark Alexander's analysis of the Obama strategy for the sequester is correct. The Republicans are continually on the defensive. They must turn the tables. They must take credit now for the stock market records, any increase in GDP, any drop in unemployment, and any other good news that comes along. It should all be because they stood up and delivered spending cuts when the president did not want them. They should also be on the offensive for more cuts, and making the right cuts. Don't let the president pick and choose which cuts he makes to make the sequester look like a bad thing. You mentioned some cuts to his use of Air Force One and the like. Yes, do those kind of things; lots of those kind of things. Jam the airwaves with action items and horn blowing." --Kent in Cuba, Missouri

"Regarding Friday's Digest and government ammunition purchases, it seems pretty clear to me that this is an attempt to control supply by buying up as much available capacity as possible. It's gun control by other means. They really are trying everything in their power to enact that agenda, even if (I hope) it can't pass through more appropriate legislative channels." --Michael in Knoxville, Tennessee

"I understand the requirement that armed federal officials must have so many rounds per month used at the practice range. This makes sense to me. What I do not understand is why these rounds are new and not significantly cheaper reloads. And why all the hollow-point rounds?" --Wardeman in Mid West

The Last Word

"Joshua Welch -- a boy, wouldn't you know; no good can come of these turbulent creatures -- who is 7, was suspended from second grade in Maryland's Anne Arundel County last week because of his 'Pop-Tart pistol.' While eating a rectangular fruit-filled sugary something -- nutritionist Michelle Obama probably disapproves of it, and don't let Michael Bloomberg get started -- Joshua tried biting it into the shape of a mountain, but decided it looked more like a gun. So with gender-specific perversity he did the natural thing. He said, 'Bang, bang.' ... The [school] said 'one of our students used food to make inappropriate gestures' and although 'no physical threats were made and no one was harmed' the code of student conduct stipulates 'appropriate consequences.' The [school's] letter, suffused with the therapeutic ethic, suggested that parents help their children 'share their feelings' about all this. It also said the school counselor is available, presumably to cope with Post-Pastry Trauma Syndrome. ... Government is failing spectacularly at its core functions, such as budgeting and educating. Yet it continues to multiply its peripheral and esoteric responsibilities, tasks that require it to do things for which it has no aptitude, such as thinking and making common-sense judgments. Government nowadays is not just embarrassing, it is -- let us not mince words -- inappropriate." --columnist George Will

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team