By L. Neil Smith lneil@netzero.com
For Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership http://www.JPFO.org
For those of us who make the transition from gun owner and shooter to
Second Amendment activist, the most disillusioning phenomenon we have
to face is that not everyone we might expect to be an ally in the fight
for the right to own and carry weapons can actually be relied on.
When I first became involved in this historical struggle, Smith & Wesson,
that quintessentially American revolver manufacturer was actually owned
by a British holding company that didn't give a rap about the Second Amendment,
was much more concerned with the company's sales to police departments
across the country, and was inclined to go along with any regulatory scheme
politicians and bureaucrats came up with.
Similarly, the late Bill Ruger, the head Sturm Ruger & Company,
never seemed to understand the Second Amendment. Paternalist and aristocrat
that he appeared to fancy himself, he actually volunteered advice to the
government concerning what he believed ought to be legal (whatever his
company manufactured) and what should be outlawed. We have Ruger mostly
to thank for the ten-round limit that was imposed during the ill-conceived
Clinton-Dole Ugly Gun and Adequate Magazine Ban.
Some gun companies and their executives care only about the bottom line.
Hired away from soft drink or underwear manufacturers, the men at the
top don't really have any moral or sentimental attachment to the product
itself. They don't love what they do. They might as well be manufacturing
faucet washers. I don't suppose there's anything wrong with that, as far
as it goes -- I'm a big fan of capitalism, myself -- but other companies
are like the historic makers of fine musical instruments -- violins and
guitars. Money is important chiefly in that it keeps the company and its
employees going. What really counts is the quality of their product and
the satisfaction of their customers.
Wildey J. Moore, inventor of magnum automatic pistols comes to mind.
He actually ran for office in his home state as a libertarian and Second
Amendment advocate. Ronnie Barrett stoutly refuses to sell his famous
.50 caliber rifles to agencies of gun-banning governments, and he won't
service the ones they already have. STI International won't sell their
nifty 1911s to California police agencies because of the bizarre, insane
microstamping scheme passed by that state's legislature.
Regrettably, another famous maker of 1911s, Kimber Manufacturing, seems
to have trouble separating the goodguys from the badguys. According
to an article by Ken Hanson, Esq., circulated on the Web by the
Buckeye Firearms Association, and appearing on U.S. Concealed
Carry Magazine's
website, Kimber has acquired a bad habit: kissing up disgustingly
to the destroyers of individual liberty by creating weapons especially
dedicated to various California police agencies. In Hanson's words, these
guns were specifically "designed
for a local government committed to stripping civilians of the
right to own this same gun."
Emphasis added.
See: http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/node/5674
Hanson urges his readers to "educate" Kimber with regard to
what a terrible idea this is. It's exactly as if Jewish tailors in the
1930s had taken pride in making uniforms for the Nazi S.S. There is no
moral distinction. The author suggests a number of actions that concerned
gun owners might take. chiefly calling or writing to the company at 914-964-0771x324,
or via US mail at Kimber, 2590 Hwy 35, Kalispell, MT 59901.
Although Hanson wants you to warn Kimber and its dealers of a possible
boycott of their products by shooters concerned with their rights, he
suggests your communication remain "polite, professional yet firm".
I would make no such suggestion. This is a major breach of an implicit
moral bond between a gunmaker and its clients, it is the rankest, most
repulsive kind of hypocrisy, and it must be dealt with no less promptly
and harshly than I urged in my 2000 essay "S&W Must Die".
See: http://www.jpfo.org/alerts/alert20000406.htm
The worldwide boycott which that essay helped to start broke S&W
and sent them plunging -- repeatedly -- into bankruptcy. (Much the same
thing happened to K-Mart when they foolishly hired the slavering, hysterical
anti-gunner Rosie O'Donnell as their spokeswoman.) It is a story of which
no firearms manufacturer today can possibly still be ignorant.
In short, we must ask shooters to kick the Kimber
habit.
I agree with Hanson about the need for gun owners to react to Kimber's
suicidal stupidity, but I would suggest also dealing with the
problem at the other end. Why not a written pledge, to be taken
and signed by individual police officers, that they will never attempt
to confiscate weapons from civilians, whether it's during disasters like
Hurricane Katrina, or as a result of local, state, or federal legislation.
If it's unconstitutional, it's automatically null and void.
That pledge can be archived by an organization like JPFO, and openly
displayed online, making it easier to see who the goodguys and the badguys
are. We could probably even design and make a nice little embroidered
patch -- it might say "BILL OF RIGHTS ENFORCER" -- for the pledge-making
police officers to sew on their uniforms. Until their superiors, veins
standing out on their foreheads and little gobbets of spit blasting from
their lips as they scream, order them to take it off.
Of course that, in itself, will teach cops everywhere a valuable lesson,
and even make them ask themselves an important question, "Why am
I helping to destroy The Bill of Rights", and the Kimber Kiss-ups
should ask themselves the same question.
Visit JPFO.org, and learn how you can obtain a Springfield
Armory pistol for just a few hundred dollars.
==========================================================================
"Men cannot be governed and remain men. Domesticate the wolf and he changes
both physically and mentally. His muzzle shrinks, his teeth diminish, he loses
size, speed, and strength, He grows spots. His ears flop. His brain withers.
He becomes a dog. Men are on the verge of becoming dogs -- the changes
are underway already -- unless we do something to stop it."
-- The Ceo Lia Wheeler, Phoebus Krumm, forthcoming
Four-time Prometheus Award-winner L. Neil Smith has been writing about
guns and gun ownership for more than 30 years. He is the author of 27
books, the most widely-published and prolific libertarian novelist in
the world, and is considered an expert on the ethics of self-defense.
His writings may be seen on the following sites:
The Webley Page: http://www.lneilsmith.org
The Libertarian Enterprise: http://www.ncc-1776.org
The Probability Broach: The Graphic Novel, Roswell, Texas, and TimePeeper (August
2007): http://www.bigheadpress.com
LNS at Random (blog): http://www.bigheadpress.com/lneilsmith/
(Find
other articles by L. Neil Smith)
