http://www.hunterbear.org/wobbly_art.htm

UPDATE COMMENT BY HUNTER BEAR [JUNE 29   2010]:  THE MAJOR CHICAGO GUN RIGHTS VICTORY -- UPDATED

UPDATE COMMENT BY HUNTER BEAR [APRIL 26 2009]: EPITAPH FOR GUN CONTROL?  WELL, HOPEFULLY.

 

 

In response to John's post on Redbadbear -- stemming from my post on Nat Hentoff's critique of Eric Holder.

 

What this boils down to is that Holder -- like much of the Obama inner circle -- is no friend of gun owners.  In his case, judging from his career as Deputy Attorney General under Janet Reno and Bill Clinton, it's clear that he's more of an open and explicit foe of gun owners than at least most of the others.  But he's also a born "team player" -- though one whose advice on the gun score could certainly be problematic.  He does have two major problems:  the last thing most Democratic politicians -- and at least some of the Republicans -- want to get into is "that issue."  Secondly, there is the June USSC decision clarifying the Second Amendment as an individual right -- and this, a strong bulwark of defense for gun owners, promises tangle after tangle of litigation should the Obama administration move in an overtly anti-gun fashion. 

 

Holder was a prime force behind heavily armed ATF raids on a number of gun owners in the latter '90s -- whose prime "sin" in many cases appears only to have been that they had large quantities of firearms.  [The Second Amendment doesn't place a limit on the number of guns a person can possess.]  These raids were denounced by NRA people as initiated and carried by "jack booted thugs" -- a phrase initially used verbatim in that specific context by liberal Democratic Congressman John Dingell of Michigan -- a Life member of NRA.  Holder was certainly involved in the administrative decrees of the Clinton period which, using frivolous criteria such as selling guns from one's residence rather than maintaining a commercial store, wiped out 200,000 small Federally licensed gun owners who sold mainly to family and friends and who were a significant check on the price gouging "big" gun dealers.  Holder was certainly a key figure in grossly exaggerating the "militia menace" in this country -- virtually all of those statistically minimal groups, in entity numbers and membership, being made up of harmless wannabe soldiers who played nonviolent games on weekends. [Only a few of the militia groups were genuinely dangerous by reasonable yardsticks.] Another major contributor to this "inflation" was Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Clinton's 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Death Penalty Restoration Act, used by Bush in the immediate post 9-11 era, was, as I've often noted, the precursor of the Patriot Act.  In 1999, FBI director Louis Freeh began to predict an armed para-military outbreak when the clock struck midnight [he didn't give the specific time zone] on January 1 2000 and "the computers turned over date-wise."  Those dire and hysterical warnings proved pure fantasy.  It's probable that Holder, who from the AG's office has traditionally worked closely with the FBI, was a party to the furtherance of this truly wild canard.

 

But these days, I see the matter of  certain "other" civil liberties in our atmosphere of "war on terror" and emphasized national security as the immediate challenge in that arena -- just as it's been for the preceding eight years and at many other points in this nation's history.

 

Holder bears watching -- and so, frankly, does Obama.  And civil libertarians need to keep the pressure on -- and on.

 

Yours, HUNTER [HUNTER BEAR]

____________________________________________________________

 

NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR:  [April 18 2007]    AND SCROLL DOWN FOR MUCH MORE

 

It still remains difficult -- given the endlessly pervasive preoccupation of virtually all television media with the events in Virginia -- to get much of a specific handle on the general run of national and global challenges and tragedies.  Even locally, here in Eastern Idaho, some of the high points of a truly gory murder trial at Pocatello were preempted on some stations by the national networks.  The "historical" discussion and analysis on Redbadbear re other specific colossal tragedies -- those directed against Native people such as the slaughter at Wounded Knee in late 1890 -- and the Kent State situation [remember Jackson State in the same time frame as Kent] , are commendably lively and interesting.  It is a long "river of blood and pain."  One thinks, in addition to those cited, such sanguinary crucibles as the Bear River Massacre just south of here in early 1863:  three hundred or so Shoshone men, women, and children summarily killed by California Volunteers and others sponsored by the Union Army. [As I've noted a few times before, a good friend indeed and a former student, Dr Kass Fleisher, published a fine and revealing book -- which travels well beyond the historical period and its horrific events -- into the implications and ramifications [often troubling] of Right Now. The book is The Bear River Massacre and the Making of History [Albany:  State University of New York Press, 2004.]  And as we mention the Sand Creek slaughter of peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho in eastern Colorado in 1864 by Colorado militia, let's remember as well the 1914 Ludlow Massacre in southern Colorado when about two dozen [at least] striking coal miners and women and children were shot down by Rockefeller gunmen.  Some years ago, Mack [youngest son] and I stopped by the UMWA monument [which I had visited several times earlier] commemorating that martyrdom.  I, myself think of the English massacre of  several hundred Abenaki men, women, and children [and their Jesuit priest] on the banks of Maine's Kennebec River almost 150 years before Sand Creek -- and the equally genocidal 1759 assault by the British Rogers' Rangers on the St Francis Abenaki mission village at Odanak in southern Quebec.  Lots and lots of tragedy on The Bloodstained Trail.

 

A note from my oldest son, [John/Beba] earlier this morning mentioned that another former student of mine, now a lawyer, has secured acquittal for a young Black man charged with murder in the Fargo/Moorhead setting.  Always good to hear things like that.  John also mentioned, as I have observed here and there within the current television marathon, the fact that "gun control" is now again being raised -- as the desperate search for blame at Virginia picks up steam.  Since my lifelong stance against That is well known, I won't belabor it at this point.  But, more than thirty years ago, I wrote -- and have since repeated -- that crime and violence are not caused by guns.  They are generated by "racism and ethnocentrism, economic deprivation, population growth and urban congestion and inter-personal and value alienation."  Address those substantively and we all may get somewhere but, again as I wrote almost a year ago, if --

 

"Now, the Democrats do finally stand a fighting chance -- in the Lost Lands
of the Mountain West, the Midwest, the South.  There is, obviously, no end
of issues of social concern.  But if the "national Democrats" swallow "gun
control" -- especially in any national form [and there is a fair chance some
may try that one] -- and if they embrace Hillary for President [not too
likely at this point but who knows, given the tendency of much of Humanity
to "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory"] -- it'll be right back to the
Funeral Mountains of Death Valley."

 

Our Left, such as it is in this country, should think long and hard before it jumps into gun control advocacy.  It already has the signal problem -- given its tendency to talk only to and with itself and to swim into the less rational waters of "political correctness"[I'm not talking about reasonable good taste and good sense] -- of an obviously very basic and often multi-faceted non-connect relationship with mainline America.

 

I should add that, since the DC gun ban has been overturned by the Federal Appellate body and has now been accepted judgment-wise by the USSC, a possible ruling by the high court conclusively delineating the Second Amendment as that which it has always been -- an Individual Right [with all of its companion Rights] -- may reduce some of the gun control concern and fervor on all sides. That could open the door, within the context of the Second, to regionally sensitive and thoughtful state approaches.

 

Solidarity -- H.

______________________________________________________________________

COMMENT TO ED PICKERSGILL BY HUNTER:

Thanks, Ed, for placing my piece in your quite good indeed web magazine [My Town].

We also have it now on our Hunterbear website under the name, "The Bloodstained Trail." That is the title of one of the now rarest IWW-sponsored books, The Bloodstained Trail: A History of Militant Labor in the United States, by Ed. Delaney and M.T. Rice, and published by The Industrial Worker [then the western organ of the IWW] at Seattle, 1927. [I credit it on my website caption.] I am fortunate to have a copy [right here on my desk, btw] in my pretty large collection of Wobbly, WFM, and Mine Mill materials.

Anyway, again thanks much. As Ever, H

http://www.mytown.ca/ev.php?URL_ID=119184&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

SPECIAL INSERT [DECEMBER 25 2007]:  ANOTHER CHRISTMAS, ANOTHER TIME [HUNTER BEAR]

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´
and Ohkwari'

_____________________________________________________________________________

COMMENT TO MICHAEL MARINO BY HUNTER:  4/19/07

Michael:

Your thoughts are thoughtful. You've mulled these gun issues over in a fashion that is often absent in liberal and left circles. Handguns are not my own "gun focus." Of the seven firearms I now have, one is a Ruger single-action .22 magnum revolver, one is a single-barrel ten gauge 3 1/2 inch magnum  shotgun, and the others are all big bore "Western" lever action rifles whose mechanical  origins are pre-1900. On the other hand, looking at it functionally and realistically, the country is full of good folks who enjoy handgun shooting and/or who have handguns for protection [and often protection is needed.] The "assault rifles" that are often used as media scare stuff are actually semi-automatics, whose actions are no different than a very conventional.22 semi-automatic that is readily available in many stores around the country. As you may know, a semi-automatic requires a trigger pull for each shot. Fully automatic weapons -- pull the trigger once and a full flow of shots follow -- have been banned in this country since the year I was born [1934.] The so-termed "assault rifles" are dressed up in superficially militaristic clothing -- trimmings -- but are still simple semi-automatics [not machine guns!] Their nature was deliberately misrepresented by the Clinton crowd -- and those canards were widely believed [and probably still are] by all too many normally thoughtful liberals and left folk [most of whom don't know the difference between a Red Ryder "bb" gun and real firearms.]

In the end, I'm against virtually all "gun control." Most of the people who advocate "gun control" and mass Federal registration of firearms, etc., really want confiscation and prohibition of all firearms. "Slippery slope" [erosion] concerns are very legitimate concerns where gun rights and other rights are involved. And "outlaw types" will always have guns -- whatever the degree of so-termed official "gun control." Virtually all of the many handguns in this country -- a vast number -- are used legitimately by sensible people.

And, "gun control" is often a diversion -- deliberate and otherwise -- to avoid dealing with the basic systemic issues that, directly and indirectly, lead to criminal behavior: e.g., corporate capitalism.

Again, I do very much appreciate the serious thought that you are giving to all of this. I see very little of that on this issue among many liberal and left people. But you have always been a commendable Free Thinker, Mike!

Best, H

________________________________________________________________________________

LIST POST BY HUNTER:  4/19/07

AND NORLA ANTINORO OBSERVES:

Have any of the mass killers of our times [recorded history] been responsible, well trained gun owners? I think not. All the gun owners are not republican and not all anti gun people are liberals. Most people who are vehemently pro gun control are control freaks who would hide their own guns under the bed and then make a law that says you can't have one.

Norla

________________

HUNTER BEAR COMMENT ON NRA ISSUES:

My stand for the Second Amendment [and the Bill of Rights in general] is too
well known on RBB to repeat at this point. But there are a couple of points
with respect to this piece that warrant mention: NRA is quite right indeed to
sharply question the validity of government-designated "suspected terrorists" on
secret governmental lists -- i.e., bills of attainer. Anyone who knows the sordid
history and cruel fall-out in periods of fear and hysteria in this country
knows precisely to what that kind of witch-hunting leads. A second point is that
NRA has never -- never -- sanctioned "militias" and other types of para-military
organizations. Since it has almost four million members, it can hardly be
responsible for any one individual -- but, in 1994 and 1995, aware of
militia growth, NRA took extremely strong positions against all forms of
para-military organization:

http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/nra.militia.statement.html

Hunter Bear

_____________________________________________________________

Feel like I'm back in the Billy Clinton days. Fire courses through my veins.

Pope's piece states:

"George H.W. Bush, the current Bush's father, withdrew his membership when
an NRA mail-out described civil servants as "jack-booted government thugs"
wearing "nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms,"  etc. but Bush Junior
remains faithful. In 2004, he allowed the law banning assault weapons to
sunset."


In 1992, the  essentially non-partisan NRA declined to endorse either
Clinton or Bush I. [NRA, I should add, remains non-partisan.]

The statement by NRA -- "jack-booted government thugs," etc -- was taken
verbatim from that originally given shortly before by liberal Democratic
Congressman from Michigan, John Dingell -- still in Congress and still a
Life Member of NRA. Dingell was quite rightly alarmed at police state tactics.
Most of the media were not -- nor was most of the ACLU.

The "assault weapons" in question are, as I have frequently noted,
conventional semi-automatic rifles dressed up in superficially "scary" militaristic
clothing. In actuality, there is no structural difference, save in caliber, between
them and semi-automatic .22s . Fully automatic weapons have been banned in the US
since 1934. All of this was deliberately confused by the Clinton folks and
their media allies.

If Pope is going to get into these things, he should learn, as the lawyers
put it, the factual situation.

Hunter Bear -- Benefactor Life Member of NRA and Life Member of North Dakota
Shooting Sports Association.

_________________________________________________________________
 

AND EVEN MORE GUN COMMENT!  [MAY 16 2007]

ATTORNEY REBER BOULT WRITES FROM NEW MEXICO:

This, from an article
at http://www.lexisone.com/news/nlibrary/n050707a.html , is interesting;
it's not exactly my view but maybe I'll come around too:

'Laurence H. Tribe, a law professor at Harvard, said he had come to
believe that the Second Amendment protected an individual right.

'"My conclusion came as something of a surprise to me, and an unwelcome
surprise," Professor Tribe said. "I have always supported as a matter of
policy very comprehensive gun control."

'The first two editions of Professor Tribe's influential treatise on
constitutional law, in 1978 and 1988, endorsed the collective rights
view. The latest, published in 2000, sets out his current interpretation.

'Several other leading liberal constitutional scholars, notably Akhil
Reed Amar at Yale and Sanford Levinson at the University of Texas, are
in broad agreement favoring an individual rights interpretation. Their
work has in a remarkably short time upended the conventional
understanding of the Second Amendment, and it set the stage for the
Parker decision.'

Reber Boult



HUNTER BEAR WRITES IN RESPONSE TO SEVERAL RBB LIST COMMENTS:

First, I much appreciate Reber's post on the now fast developing recognition
that the Second Amendment is an individual right -- along with all of the
other individual rights guaranteed in the Constitution. Professor Tribe's
current assessment is a valuable contribution to our [non-violent] arsenal.
And I am delighted that Reber, whose opinions I much respect, is most
thoughtfully "coming over" [with "deliberate speed"] on this one.
The Heavens smile in cordial fashion, Reber, and the Angels sing. All of
this, of course -- Figuratively.

With all due respect to Canada, Ed, within which I have more relatives from
both sides of my family than I do in the 'States, it has made a holy mess of
the gun thing. Its mass gun registration scheme [rightly feared by many as a
prelude to outright confiscation and prohibition] which grew out of Ontario,
has angered the western provinces and virtually all Native people. [BTW, I
have never met an American Indian or Alaskan Native -- or Canadian Native
anywhere in Canada -- who supported even a modicum of "gun control." There
may be some but we have never met.] The Canadian West has largely refused to
comply with the national firearms registration policies levied by the
Federal government. And the Natives, with unique and vital socio-cultural
and legal sovereignty and often with some economic dimensions contingent on
hunting and trapping, most certainly have not.

We all know the sweeping gun bans that have occurred in Great Britain and
Australia et al.

The logical and functional fallacies in, say, taking a gun-related tragedy
and seeking to build restrictive national gun policies out of that, should
be obvious to all -- especially after the debacle of the Clinton years.

I should add that, while I have a respectable firearms collection -- all of
which stem from pre-1900 patents -- and this includes one revolver, I myself
have never been interested in a "concealed / carry" permit [though I
obviously believe the right to have one falls within the context of the
Second.] There have been a number of social justice organizing occasions
where I have carried -- and in very, very rare cases, used -- firearms for
self-defense. I have, when I've felt the need, sometimes carried a rifle in
my vehicle or a revolver in its holster on the front seat -- and, now and
then, I have carried a revolver out-of-sight on my person, though not in
recent times. In our Southern years, I usually had a revolver in my vehicle
and frequently in my attaché case. Presently, I have a loaded .444 Marlin
lever action rifle here in our Idaho home.

I think it's reasonably well known that I have written and spoken widely on
behalf of the Second and gun rights in general. John will recall our 1988
trip to Mississippi and New Orleans where I had several pending
involvements. In New Orleans, I spoke on behalf of firearms and self-defense
at the National Popular Culture conference, drawing heavily from my Southern
movement, Chicago, and other organizing experiences. Most of the
sociologists present, including Bill Tonso who chaired the session, agreed
with me. I did have a somewhat unpleasant clash with Gary ____, a
supercilious Easterner. Sitting in the back of the room, and unseen by all
save me, and smiling broadly, John held up my attaché case and pointed -- 
very pointedly indeed -- within it. It contained my .357 Ruger revolver. But
I used words to successfully  make my points. My presentation, "Civil Rights
and Self-Defense" was widely published: Tonso made it a chapter in his The
Gun Culture and its Enemies, it appeared in the fine socialist journal,
Against the Current, and in various other places. I find it quoted
hither-and-yon even now.

When my son, Peter [Mack] graduated from the UND journalism school, and
immediately joined the Bismarck Tribune -- quite soon becoming its State
Editor -- I gave him that revolver as a graduation gift. He was glad to have
it when he went down into LaMoure Co. [ND] to investigate and write about a
racist coven [the Missouri-based Winrod outfit], a genuinely dangerous gang.
He did a fine series of pieces but did not need to display his reassuring
weapon. I gave John my Derringer a few years later; and to Thomas I recently
gave one of my favorite rifles [a nice little .357 lever action.]

But I still have a very respectable firearms collection and I still have a
loaded Marlin quite nearby.

Happy shooting. HUNTER BEAR

_________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________

MY SMALL BUT VERY SELECT FIREARMS COLLECTION [HUNTER BEAR]

My Browning Super High Grade 1895 30/06 -- One In One Thousand  [Serial Number 00314]

________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

THE FINLAND HIGH SCHOOL SHOOTINGS [NOVEMBER 2007]

Hunter, [From Jyri Kokkonen] 11/08/07

      I assume you've heard about the high school shooting in Finland
yesterday. Eight people died: the principal of the school, the school nurse,
five students and the perpetrator, from a self-inflicted wound to the head.
The 18-year-old young man had posted videos and a blog text on the Internet
more or less announcing his intentions. a rambling manifesto in which he
declares himself a "natural  selector" fit to weed out those unfit to live.
It imitated in many ways the events at Virginia Tech last spring.

      Our small country is frankly in a state of shock. We're not used to
things like this, and I, for one, am more than a bit depressed.

      Explanations have started to appear. Some idiots blame it on American
influence (cf. Virginia Tech and Columbine), others on the Internet or
heavy-metal music. I think the explanation is  far more simple, a mentally
unhinged young man who was dumped by his girlfriend and went on to act out
his fantasy of revenge, albeit a complex one involving declarations of
intent, or calls for help if you like.

      This begs the question of why no one noticed his situation or why
didn't he seek help.  Basically futile questions and speculation at this
stage, but there is an underlying and not too distant political aspect even
here. Since the early 1990s we have witnessed in many areas the dismantling
of the services of our type of Nordic welfare state. One area that has
suffered is mental health services for children and young people, often
including counsellors in schools. These services still exist but their scope
and extent have been seriously reduced. A great number of young people with
problems of this kind simply do not get the help that they need soon enough,
or they go undetected too long.

      Cheap political points could be made by arguing that the events at the
school ultimately resulted from misguided policies pursued by individuals
that can be named. That is pointless, as each case is unique in all its
tragedy, and even the worst bastards in our political arena would hardly
have anticipated anything like this from budget cuts, but if the high school
shooting marks the emergence of a pattern, or worse still the tip of an
iceberg, as some say, we are heading for serious trouble. I think there will
be a political response to these events and one for the better, I hope.

      All the best,

      Jyri [Kokkonen]


Dear Jyri:  [From Hunter Gray]

Thanks very much indeed for your just arrived [and not unexpected] post.
I'm posting it -- a sad but timely commentary -- on a couple of our lists.
It's almost trite to say that we, here, of course, are all too used to these
sorts of tragedies.  In general, much of your thoughtful analysis with
respect to the Finnish situational challenges applies here.  Interpersonal
and value alienation are two obviously common factors -- and there certainly
have been substantive cuts in much needed social services on these shores.
For us, I'd also add a few others found in our setting which you all
essentially do not have: economic deprivation and general insecurity in that
realm,  national legacies of violence and racism, burgeoning
urban/industrialization.  I don't know what the negative effects of
year-after-year "war killings"  and public cheapening of human life [via
television and other media] are in Finland, but I am certain all of that
plays a significant role in this country. [I'm also chary of making
grandiose cross-cultural judgements when I know nothing first-hand of the
"other" culture -- and thus we are grateful for your timely and reasoned
first-hand assessment.]  On a couple of personal notes, Eldri, who
identifies significantly with Finland, was especially shocked; and I add,
again, my own special commercial [with which I suspect you may basically
agree], that sweeping policies of "gun control" are no positive answer at
all to any of these sanguinary events.  More from me soon -- including with
respect to the political situation hereabouts.

Our very best to you and your fine family -- and to Finland.
As Ever, Hunter [Hunter Bear]

 

Hunter, [From Jyri Kokkonen] [Crossed with Hunter's message]
Brief postscript to my last message. The high school shooting has also
aroused a debate of sorts about access to guns here. According to some
statistic, Finland ranks third in the world in per capita possession of
firearms, after the US and Yemen, they say. The young man in question owned
a .22 caliber self-loading pistol, which he had acquired as the member of a
reputable shooting club, a completely common practice here. Now some people
are calling for strict psychological screening of those wanting to own
handguns in addition to the normal checks for criminal record and the
requirement of storing concealable short-barrel firearms at shooting club
promises for everyone under 30. I think that is pointless. Someone bent on
causing  damage can just as well take to an axe, cleaver, machete, knife, or
a variety of household items, and criminals can always lay their hands on
firearms.  Besides, we had a case some years ago where a young woman went
berserk and started shooting people at a shooting club firing range in
Helsinki, and she had been a regular member of the club. Guns are not the
issue.
Jyri [Kokkonen]

 

HUNTER GRAY  [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR]   Mi'kmaq /St. Francis
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´
 and Ohkwari'

___________________________________________________________________________________
 

AN INTERIM COMMENT:  HUNTER BEAR  FEBRUARY 25 2008

LIFE DOES EXIST IN THE OLE BEAR DEN [REDBADBEAR DISCUSSION]  HUNTER BEAR

NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR: FEBRUARY 26 2008

Well, it was certainly pleasant to awake briefly around midnight and note the copious and worthwhile exchange between Norla and Edward -- and to see the entrance early this morn of Michael and Sam. Spring is indeed coming -- pretty obviously here in the Snake River country -- and the Bear Den is marked by constructive stirrings. [Actually, it's done right well discussionally all through the winter.]

[On "gun rights issues," I am pleased to note that our major website page on that is one of those presently visited in consistently heavy fashion. Most on RBB have at least skimmed it, but I give its Link for reference. I should add that its title lies in a mostly different context: the name of a very rare I.W.W. book of martyrs which is mentioned just before I [and Edward and others] get into gun talk. The book is in my large personal collection.


A few thoughts:

I checked out my very recently arrived March copy of The American Rifleman -- primary organ of NRA -- and in its sedate and well done editorial discussions of "gun free zones" and related matters, noted virtually nothing on the matter of National Parks and firearms. Whatever our good NRA's involvement in that may be, it's obviously not a top priority. [As I noted yesterday, I really don't feel firearms belong in National Parks, though perhaps we could arm the bears.] Locally -- hereabouts -- there has been some public discussion about a proposal to arm students and faculty at Idaho State University but I, at least, have heard of no NRA involvement in that. [The matter seems to be receding.] I should add that I don't feel that arming classroom participants is conducive to a good teaching/learning atmosphere in any school, living our lives always entails some risk, and I'm willing to leave security in the hands of those who, at least and hopefully, are properly trained to provide those services.

I have always resented, however, the successful move during the Clinton administration to prevent high school students from having firearms in their vehicles while such are in school parking lots. In my day, anyway, we often hunted in the early mornings before heading directly to our educational penal institution.

In fact, one NRA editorial focuses -- and very appropriately in my opinion -- primarily on Hillary and her companion Clinton and their very well known anti-gun sentiments. Those, of course, initiated and carried a full-scale witch-hunt against gun owners and gun rights organizations for years during the very anti-civil libertarian Clinton era. The NRA -- and several comparable but smaller organizations -- not only stood up well but, in the case of NRA especially, grew very substantially. During that era, in addition to my other 'rights involvements, I handled, in an official fashion, much media relations re NRA and Second Amendment issues -- from a very vigorously pro-gun perspective -- for various Friends of NRA groups in North Dakota and, later from Idaho, continued the N.D. involvements via mail and also was most active around here in the Gem State and, again via mail, in a few Montana and Wyoming settings as well. Kinko Copy may have declared a dividend via me, and the US Postal Service didn't do badly either during those frenetic days.

And I'll always fondly remember how our grandson/son, Thomas, and I would faithfully man the NRA booth at various gun shows and handle the silent auctions at the big Friends of NRA annual affairs.

If NAFTA quite rightly indeed is an angering term for working people and their families, the name Clinton stirs the same level of passion among most American firearms owners. My Jeep Cherokee carries [and I've previously mentioned this] these stickers: "UAW" and "I'm A Gun-Toting Idaho Democrat."

And there is another one as well, "Organize!"

And, of course, there is my always consistent -- over the decades -- NRA Life Membership sticker.

A note on Western lands:

Most of the land in the Western states is publicly owned -- via U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Park Service. This also includes much turf in the western parts of the Dakotas. [Firearms are no issue at all in the first two agency settings.] State parks are minimal. And there are also, of course, many Native reservations -- many substantial in land acreage. [BTW, I have never -- never -- met a fellow American Indian person who supported, say, anything even remotely like the Clinton version of "gun control." Most of us in the Native world are very knowledgeable gun owners. And for a variety of very good reasons! ]

And there are, too, a number of significant public and reservation land holdings back beyond our "Golden West" -- in the rest of what's called the United States.

All of the public lands [and the reservations as well] have been able, in recent times, to pretty successfully fight off incursions by land- and resource-coveting interests: e.g., the privatization-focused so-called Sagebrush Rebellion and its poisonously voracious kin.  

But, anyway, many thanks again to the Stirring Furries [not furies] in our Bear Den -- and let's always ride all of the "fence lines" [figuratively] for the protection of all of our rights and liberties.

An Old Army guard-duty adage has suddenly popped back up into my mind. And, with a bit of cultural modification, it fits for all of us who struggle in our various ways for food -- and freedom, too: "I walk my post in a military manner -- and I don't take ____from the Company Commander."

Always In Solidarity,

Hunter [Hunter Bear]

________________________________________________________________________

COMMENT:

A REASONABLY ARTICULATE RANT ON THE MORNING OF APRIL 6 2008, WIDELY POSTED [HUNTER BEAR]

 

previous

index

continue