There is an old saying “Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.” The liberal media and others that don’t want you to own guns keep saying gun owners are paranoid, that nobody really wants to take our guns. That is their new mantra and they are sticking with it, no matter the facts.

We have a good reason to be paranoid when it comes to our gun rights. History proves if we don’t react immediately to each and every threat, we lose. Andrew Jackson, in his farewell address in 1837, said: “eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty.” Many others have echoed that theme and it has never been truer than it is right now.

A good example of how the liberal media is using the paranoid label is a segment on CNN broadcast on March 27, 2009. In it Correspondent Sean Callebs stated: “In fact, it may not be rational at all. It might even be paranoid. But one thing is certain. Many gun owners believe this president is somehow out to curb their rights and they’re stocking up just in case.”

Paranoid? Not rational? During the above segment, where the talking head called us paranoid, a text across the bottom of the screen said Obama supports the 2nd Amendment, supports giving police more rights to trace gun data and wants to close the “gun show loophole.” Newsbusters says a crawl that does not show up on the segment on the internet stated Obama wants to reinstate the “assault weapons” ban and make it permanent.

That is really supporting the 2nd Amendment and supporting gun owners’ rights! They are out to get our guns.

Sometimes we seem to overreact. Recently an email went around about SB 2099 being passed in secret and would make us pay a $50 tax on each gun we own. Problem is, that bill was introduced in 2000, nine years ago, and went nowhere.

But there is a grain of truth to the scare. According to Chris Cox of the NRA, Obama, when he was a Illinois state senator, supported increasing the federal excise tax on guns by 500 percent.

That’s not paranoid, that is history. Do rational people really think Obama no longer supports such an extreme tax hike on our guns?

To show the lengths the gun control fanatics will go, several groups sued in court to reinstate the ban on carrying guns in national parks. For years if you drove into Kennesaw Mountain National Park with your legally carried loaded handgun you broke a park rule. Even though you were legal outside the gates of the park because you have an Georgia Firearms License, before you got on park lands you were supposed to unload your gun and put it away.

Last fall under President Bush this rule was reviewed and removed, allowing you to keep your gun with you. Expected groups, like the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and groups that should know better, like the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, sued, saying said they did not want you and me to be able to take our legal guns into parks.

It always amazes me when people seem to think a murderer or robber will get to a park gate, stop and think “I better not break a park rule while committing murder.” Only us law abiding citizens obey the law!

It was no big surprise when a liberal judge overturned this rule. Then last month Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), attached to a bill an amendment that gave us the right to carry our guns in parks legally.

After 67 Senators voted for the amendment the bill passed 90 to 5. In the House they passed the bill then held a separate vote on the amendment, just to see who wanted to take away our rights. The amendment still passed by a vote of 279 to 147. As expected, all 147 votes in the house and 28 of the 29 in the Senate against our rights were liberal democrats.

Warning – this law doesn’t go into effect until next February, 2010 so only criminals can carry guns into National Parks until then.

This shows we can protect our rights if we stay vigilant, even if we are a little paranoid.

Do you have a Georgia Firearms License, allowing you to carry a concealed weapon? Could you pass the fingerprint background check and get one if you wanted to? If so, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence considers you a dangerous person.

The Vitter Amendment was submitted in 2009 but a new similar bill has been introduced in 2015 – expect the same hysterical response.

The silly anti-gun Brady Bunch sent out at least seven emails in the two weeks before the Vitter Amendment was voted on in late July. The Vitter Amendment was an amendment to the Department of Defense funding bill that would have allowed people with a gun license from one state to carry a gun in other states.

Right now you can drive in every state in the US with a driver’s license issued to you in your home state. You still have to obey local traffic laws, and the Vitter Amendment said you had to obey local gun laws when in other states. But the gun control fanatics went crazy opposing this amendment.

This is a quote from a July 9 2009 Brady Bunch press release on the Vitter Amendment: “This legislation would force states, your state, to allow dangerous individuals to pack heat in public.” So they consider you a dangerous individual if you have a Firearms License! Here is more from a July 17 press release: “Very dangerous legislation that would force states, your state, to allow dangerous individuals to carry loaded guns in public could be voted on as early as Monday, July 20. And we must stop it!”

This amendment failed by a 58 to 39 vote in the US Senate. No, 58 US Senators voted in favor of your rights. Only in the US Senate is a 58 in favor to 39 against vote a defeat! The amendment had to have 60 out of 100 votes to pass.

But the Brady Bunch was ecstatic! On July 22, after the Vitter Amendment lost although it got 58 yes voted out of 97 cast, the Brady Bunch crowed “You helped stop the gun lobby’s legislation that would have forced states to allow dangerous individuals to carry loaded guns in public.”

Yep, now law-abiding citizens like you and me who have gone through a fingerprint background check to get a concealed carry permit can’t cross a state line and be legal. No doubt someone planning on robbing a convenience store across the state line will stop and leave their illegal handgun in the car because this amendment failed.

It is not rational to limit law-abiding citizen’s rights to reduce crime. By definition, criminals break laws. All gun control laws do is disarm law-abiding citizens and make them vulnerable to criminals.

Both Senator Isakson (R GA) and Senator Chambliss (R GA) voted in favor of this amendment to protect your rights, as did all but two Republican US Senators. There were 37 Democrat votes against your rights and only 10 Democrats voting in favor of your rights.

Thank Senator Chambliss and Senator Isakson for voting to protect your rights. And also thank Thurbert Baker, Georgia State Attorney General, for signing a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder expressing his opposition to reinstatement of the federal ban on semi-automatic firearms.

Baker is one of 23 state Attorneys General, the top law enforcement officers in each of their states, to sign this letter. That is amazing. The top law enforcement officers in almost half our states oppose renewing the assault weapons ban. Kinda makes claims that banning these guns will reduce crime look stupid, doesn’t it?

So far US Attorney General Eric Holder is the only one talking about bringing back this useless ban. Most elected officials realize it is a useless law and voting for it will hurt them politically. But, unfortunately, there are unelected folks like Holder that can affect our gun rights.

On a good note, HB 45, the Blair Holt Firearms Licensing Bill, is going nowhere in the US House. It was introduced in January by anti-gun Representative Bobby Rush (D-IL), got no co-sponsors and was assigned to committee where it still sits, dying a slow death. Bills that are so stupid they don’t even get one co-sponsor usually don’t have enough support to ever be voted on. It probably will never see the light of day.

Keep a watch on our elected officials but keep a closer watch on those unelected bureaucrats that control our lives.

in 2009 everyone knew how anti-gun Eric Holder was but so-called pro gun politicians still voted for his approval. And they are about to do the same thing with Loretta Lynch. Why do they vote to approve someone that stands for everything they claim to be against, and is against everything they claim to be for?

This was written in 2009 and it applies even more now!

On the national front it is all bad news. Eric Holder is our new US Attorney General – the man tasked with enforcing federal laws. He has a long history of anti-gun efforts including filing a brief in the Supreme Court stating the 2nd Amendment is a collective, not an individual right and being the point man on the implementation of the Clinton Administration Assault Weapon ban. Both Senator Chambliss and Senator Isakson voted to confirm his nomination.

Senator Isakson justified his vote by saying Holder promised to enforce the Supreme Court decisions on guns as the law of the land. And that many politicians praised Holder as a lawyer.

Even ignoring the lawyer part, Holder has already called for a renewal of the assault weapons ban. He somehow thinks you can ban guns because of the way they look without stepping on the Supreme Court ruling that the 2nd Amendment means what it says and is an individual right to own guns.

Senator Chambliss said much the same thing, that Holder said he would support the Supreme Court ruling and that President Obama deserved deference in his nominations. If only the democrats observed such deference to conservative nominations.

Both Chambliss and Isakson are politicians and should know you can not trust what politicians say; you must look at their record. And Holder has a long anti-gun record. But he is now the Attorney General and they voted for him. Keep an eye on Holders statements and actions to see how wise their vote.

There has been a rash of insane killings with guns in the past few months so the anti-gun groups and the media are in a frenzy to pass laws that restrict our rights. An example is this from a Brady Center fundraising email on April 6:

“Enough is enough. I am outraged by the senseless deaths in these mass shootings — but more so, because Congress fails to act to prevent them.”

The Brady Bunch’s solution, of course, is to outlaw guns and, by the way, send them money.

60 Minutes did one of their usual hit pieces on guns on their April 12 broadcast. They seemed shocked that support for a gun control had gone down, from 60 percent in 2000 to only 49 percent today and seemed determined to do all they can to reverse that trend.

An anti-gun rights editorial from the Atlanta Constitution’s Cynthia Tucker, which can be expected on a regular basis, ran on April 12. She justified he call for a ban on assault weapons because her father hunted deer and he didn’t need an assault weapon.

The New York Times has been running a series of editorials calling for gun control. Some of the comments get scary. For example, in an April 8th blog editorial Timothy Egan talks about guns and claims:

“American life in the spring of 2009 is full of hope, peril, and then this: the cancer at the core of our democracy.”

So guns are the “cancer” of our democracy? Even scarier is March Abraham’s March 25 Huffington Post blog:

“And as for the argument that we will never get rid of all these guns in this country; it is plain wrong. We will get rid of them if we start banning them for real.”

We must fight back or we will lose our rights. Don’t let anti-gun comments, whether from people wanting to ban guns or from people who just don’t know any better, go unanswered. Speak out for your rights and contact politicians, or lose your rights.

The NRA Convention Drives Liberals Crazy
Jim Shepherd
from The Fishing Wire

It’s another of those busy weeks for the outdoor industry. Before the week’s out, an estimated 70,000 or so pro Second Amendment supporters will converge on Nashville, Tennessee for the 2015 edition of the National Rifle Association’s Annual Meetings and Exhibits.

Other than proving that downtown Nashville isn’t equipped to handle that many people -and only a fraction of that many cars comfortably- it will prove, once again, that when it comes to the right to keep and bear arms, more people are for it than against it.

Drives the anti-gun groups crazy, but that’s the long-and-short of the lesson that will be taken away by non-shooters next Sunday when the membership heads home. Those of us who do choose to exercise that right – whenever possible- will feast in three days of being pushed, jostled and otherwise crowded cheek-to-jowl with like-minded individuals.

Over the next few days, you’ll see lots of announcements of celebrity appearances, new product rollouts- the kind of pre-event information that gets attendees excited at the prospects of what they’ll be seeing.

It’s a big week for those of us in the industry and the outdoor media because the NRA Show is not only another confab that brings all the industry leaders under a single (big) roof, it’s also the last “major” event of a string of events that begin right after Christmas. When the NRA Show closes, many of us will be heading for home and some semblance of life, uninterrupted by hotel stays and road trips.

I say many because my travel schedule doesn’t end in Nashville. That’s the first scheduled stop in more than three weeks of road work. But this year, I have a wild card in my planning: the arrival of a first grandchild. I’ve shaken off bumps, bruises, bugs, fender benders, snowstorms and various personal maladies to make scheduled events, but this first grandchild is a double-barreled threat. Mom also happens to be my good right-hand helper- meaning I’ll be back to the day-to-day work of putting the wires together while she’s out of commission. So….if I’m scheduled to appear at your event over the next three weeks, there’s a chance I might be AWOL – but it won’t be because I decided to skip out and go fishing. As I tell everyone associated with our wires, family comes first. It’s a life value I’ve learned from this industry-so allow me now to say “thanks” – it wasn’t always the most important part of my career, but I learned in time.

Last week, I was traveling to take a look at new technology related to shooting. Actually, it’s new technology related to ammunition- and I was more than impressed with what I saw. While I’m still working on more in-depth research and supplemental testing, it’s safe to say that ammunition may be changing in the not-too-distant future.

No, I’m not saying we’re getting some sort of science fiction alternative ammunition, but we’re probably going to see some of the basic components of ammunition change-significantly. Those changes won’t obsolesce our existing firearms or even modifications of what you’re currently shooting.

If you’re intrigued, that’s good. Because the innovations I saw won’t mean a horrible upheaval in the ammunition industry- just an acceptance of the fact that technology sometimes moves far faster than our industry is always willing to accept. But facts are tough to refute- especially since we pride ourselves on using facts, not emotion, when making decisions.

And this being NRA week means it’s also time for our companion service, The Tactical Wire’s annual Concealed Carry Special Edition. Editor Rich Grassi has a special edition set to come out later this week that features a lot of new products, very thoughtful features and instruction related to responsible concealed carry – and that will be hitting the mailboxes of Outdoor and Shooting Wire subscribers as well later this week.

If you’re not a subscriber to The Tactical Wire, don’t be surprised- or angry- when you see it in your mailbox- it’s just another special edition from the services dedicated to keeping our simple promise:

We’ll keep you posted.