It’s a doozy.
“Our culture is important, and we’re willing to pay for it. We have above-average educations, above-average incomes and almost nonexistent criminal involvement. We pay far more in taxes and receive virtually no subsidy payments. You’d think Washington would be happy, but instead they are doing all they can to destroy our culture.
“In the 20’s, soldiers sat on their bunks in the cold at Camp Perry, cleaning the handmade .22 target rifles they would compete with the next day. When the President proudly announces that today, he is ordering these same guns thrown into a blast furnace, we in the gun culture feel powerful emotions. They are the same emotions a Native American would feel if the President proudly ordered the destruction of war clubs and other sacred tribal artifacts. They are the same emotions that Jews felt watching newsreel footage of Nazi Sturmtroopen gleefully burning intricate copies of the Torah.
“We offer to buy the government’s surplus guns, and instead they pay to have them cut up. We offer to buy their surplus military ammo, shoot it, sell the brass to a smelter, and give the governement the proceeds, and instead they pay to have it burned.
“These government slugs ban our guns and they ban our magazines and they ban our ammo. They ban suppressors that make our guns quieter and then ban our outdoor shooting ranges because our guns are too loud. They ban steel core ammunition because it’s “Armor Piercing”, then they close down our indoor ranges where people shoot lead-core bullets because they say we might get lead poisoning.
“The people in the gun culture have a better safety record than any police department in the nations, but several states actually prohibit us from using guns for self-protection, and in all the other states except one they make us buy a license. They tax us so we can have more cops, and when crime still goes up, they tax us more and ban more of our guns.
“People in the gun culture endure waiting peiods that no other group would stand for. We undergo background checks that no legislator, judge, doctor or police officer has to tolerate, and we submit to it not once, or once a year, but over and over again. Then, after we yield to this outrage, they smile and forbid us from buying more than one gun in a 30-day period.
“If we sell one gun that’s gone up in value, they can charge us with dealing in firearms without a federal dealer’s license, which is a felony. If we get a dealer’s license, they say we are not really a business, and report us to our local authorities for violating zoning ordinances by running a commercial venture out of a residence.
“If the steel or wood on our guns is too long or too short, they make us pay $200 taxes and get fingerprinted and photgraphed. They make us get a law enforcement certification from the local police chief. If refuses to sign we have no recourse. If he takes the forms in the next room and brings them back out, signed, he can later claim the signature is not his, and the feds will charge us with a felony.
“We in the gun culture have played all the stupid games on NFA weapons for over half a century, without a single violent crime being committed by any person in the system. So when a bill comes up to keep travellers with guns locked in the truck of their cars out of jail, what happens? A scumbucket from New Jersey, where NFA weapons are illegal already, puts an amendment on it that closes down the whole NFA process.
“Then, if they suspect we’ve ignored the $200 tax process altogether, on the guns where the wood and steel is too long or too short, they’ll spend over a million dollars watching us for months, then they’ll shoot our wifes and children or burn us alive. When the public gets outraged by these actions, the government issues letters of repreimand and sends they guys on paid leave. In the decades that the feds have been raiding and killing people in the gun culture over suspected non-payment of $200 taxes, not one federal agent has been fined a single dollar or spent even one night in jail” Fleming stopped for a moment and took another drink of tea.
“And you know something else that’s never happened, Ray? To this day, not a single person in the gun culture has ever dropped the hammer on one of these feds. Not once.
Then, after these statist bastards have done all these things, they grin and tell us how much they like to hunt ducks, and how the only laws they want to pass are “reasonable ones”. Henry and Ray both looked at their friend. Neither had anything to add at that moment. It was Ray Johnson who finally spoke.
“I know everything you say is true,” he said. “I still can’t quite believe it.” He was quiet again, then asked a question. “What do you think is going to happen?”
One of two things,” Fleming said with a sigh. “One of the political parities is going to have to wake up, smell the coffee, and start restoring and reaffirming all the articles in the Bill of Rights: The Second, Fourth, Fifth and Tenth Amendments.”
“And if that doesn’t happen?” Ray asked gently. Fleming took several moments before he spoke, though it was obvious he knew exactly what he was going to say.
“Then we’re going to have a civil war.”
Unintended Consequences – John Ross – Chapter “June 26th, 1994”
Or not.
But whatever you do, buy it and read it cover to cover.
I think they just might be right
Got my second copy from Mr Ross personally at Knob Creek one year. Had to buy a thrid copy at a gun show ’cause the first two had disappeared. The scary thing is that the historical background that he uses in the book is pretty much correct. I know because I can remember most of it happening.
I just finished my second reading…
This is the book that radicalized my politics, making me one of the dreaded “single issue voters”. It got me blogging, writing, joining and thinking. I went from owning 3 guns to owning nearly 30. I joined a range, and taught my kids to shoot (over my wife’s objections).
I’ve turned some unknown number of others on to this book, and it never fails to have the same sort of effects. Now they’re doing the same. The ripple broadens.
Interestingly enough, some of his other writings contributed greatly to saving my marriage.
One of these days, I have got to meet this man and thank him.