Vanderboegh: Saving Lives, Two Uncomprehending Texas Twits at a Time

UPDATED 11/15/08 930 PM EST: David has the latest.

The tale begins at David's place with this post, wherein David stomps a reporter and a sociology professor.

Mike Vanderboegh then provides this piquant perspective (cross-posted at Mindful Musings):

I address this missive principally to Dr. Agger, but it also impacts Bro. Witt as well in his role as a representative of the Fourth Estate. You are no doubt surprised and shocked by the reaction that Dr. Agger's comments aroused amongst the firearms-owning hoi polloi when repeated in Mr. Witt's story. Both your responses to David Codrea, et al, demonstrate that you equally fail to realize that the election of Barack Obama and the total empowerment of his collectivist Democrat party has carried us all -- you, me, and everyone in this country -- through Barack Obama's looking glass into a wonderland where many of the old verities no longer apply.

The GOP pols, who we first put in power in 1994 with their false promise that they would shield us from more gun control, are gone, swept away. Talk radio is about to muzzled by the Orwellian-named "Fairness Doctrine." Next will be Hate Speech Codes on the Internet (three guesses who that will be aimed at). And then there's this wacky Obama "civilian defense corps" which is supposed to be as large as the military and with as big a budget. What's that going to look like? The Hitler Jugend? The Young Communist League? The Ton-Ton Macoute? And, no, Dr. Agger, you are wrong. This has nothing to do with race.

What you neglected to mention in your story, Mr. Witt, is this snippet of Obama transition policy which popped up on his website:

"Address Gun Violence in Cities: As president, Barack Obama would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals who shouldn’t have them. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets."

Now, the fact that this contradiction of the smooth lies told by the Lightworker during the campaign was taken down shortly thereafter did not keep it from being noticed. It is, in fact, simply a retelling of Obama's well-established anti-firearms positions.

This is not about race, Dr. Agger. Indeed, if you wish to hear a contradictory anecdote, you have only to ask the counterman at Academy Sports in Trussville, Alabama, who told me yesterday that many of the customers buying semi-automatic rifles of military utility were black and some, dare I say it, were even white liberals.

Are THEY buying out of racial guilt or fear of Nat Turner's ghost, Doctor?

Academy Sports, it should be noted, does not stock cheap SKS's or semi-auto Kalashnikovs but does sell very pricey Smith & Wesson and Remington 5.56mm and 7.62 NATO semi-auto copies of full-auto military rifles. Despite the cost (between $900 and $1500 each) they are flying off the shelves. And Trussville is hardly an inner city ghetto. It is, in fact, an up-scale bedroom community suburb of Birmingham.

White folks are buying guns for the same reason that folks of other races are buying guns: because Obama and his ofay statist pals don't want guns in ANYBODY'S hands. Have you never heard of the Deacons for Defense and Justice, Dr. Agger? The veterans of the civil rights struggle here in Alabama sure have, and it is their sons and grandsons, now successful members of an integrated community that is at peace with itself, who are down at Academy buying Smith & Wesson M4 carbines and cases of ammo to go with them. They remember that a government can easily get out of hand, unrestrained by any law other than the threat of military force in the hands of the people.

And why are many, many people of all races buying semi-automatic rifles of military utility? Oprah Winfrey once said that if someone shows you who they really are, you should believe them. OK, so we believe Obama and his white socialist friends in Congress have shown us who they are -- they are gun-grabbers.

You may recall Dianne Feinstein's infamous quote on CBS-TV's 60 Minutes, February 5, 1995: "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them . . . Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in, I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren't here."

So when we see notorious anti-firearms politicos like Rahm Emmanuel, Charles Schumer, et al, ad nauseum, embracing Obama and then we read his campaign's anti-gun words above, we're going to take Oprah's advice. We believe this is who they really are.

We do not trust them -- we will NEVER trust them -- and hence, the rush to buy.

The vehement reaction that your words caused is perfectly understandable. The anger reflects the new Wonderland world we find ourselves in. Because we believe that Obama's intentions are to further restrict our traditional liberties and to proscribe and seize our heretofore legal property, we have been making, well, adjustments, both in our thinking and in our day-to-day lives.

Here are some facts you probably haven't internalized yet.

First, it is a fact that there is a segment of the firearm-owning population in this country who will refuse to comply with any further infringement of their God-given, inalienable rights. Nor, I must tell you, will they surrender their property simply because someone thinks it's a good idea. These people have been known by many names. A few years back they were known as "cold, dead hands types." More recently, they have been described as "Three Percenters." In 1775, they were called Minutemen. It does not matter how many million of us there are. Whatever our number, it is enough to prove an indigestible lump in any would-be American tyrant's throat.

Ask yourself this question: Do you believe that the millions of Americans who are currently voting with their wallets by buying semi-automatic rifles of military utility are doing so simply in order to turn them in when Obama and Company pass their "reasonable regulations"? And if not, then what do you suppose they might be thinking about doing with them?

We find these proposed "reasonable regulations" to be, well, unreasonable. To disarm us as the Obamanoids wish, they will have to seek us out in our homes. And when they do, the most important fact about us that you must remember is that if we are willing to die in defense of our homes, our property and our liberty, we are also willing to kill in defense of those things as well. How many of us are they willing to kill to achieve their "reasonable" objective? And after the first few times some of us are killed in our homes resisting their "reasonable regulations," isn't it truly unreasonable to expect that the rest of us will sit idly by, awaiting our turn?

When democracy turns to tyranny, we still get to vote with our rifles.

Folks may sneer at us, call us names ("racists" for just one, Dr. Agger), try to marginalize us if they wish, but, as the Founders intended, they deny our existence at their peril. And the second fact should tell you why.

It is this -- in 1999, then-President Bill Clinton declared that the political leadership and news media of his enemies, the Serbs, were legitimate targets of war. He announced this after (not before) he ordered precision guided bombs and missiles into the homes of Serbian politicians and the broadcast facilities of Serbian TV and radio. Now this was roundly condemned at the time by journalists and news organizations all over the world, and rightly so. However, the Clinton Rules of Engagement still stand. Indeed, there are some who regard the academicians who support such regimes with ideas as legitimate targets under Clinton's scheme. (You may recall Martin Heidegger who, after Hitler's seizure of power in 1933 morphed from Heidegger the world-renowned philosopher to Heidegger the Nazi, holding membership card number 312589.)

Which brings us back to you fellows. Let's do the bloody math. You have the unreasonable Three-Percenters on one hand who will resist -- with force of arms -- when gun control comes to their doors. On the other hand, there is the Obama administration which seems destined to move the line of "legality" beyond where we unreasonable Three-percenters now stand. Throw in Bill Clinton's Rules of Engagement for journalists and regime stooges and you've just found yourself to be legitimate targets in a civil war.

Unfair? You bet.

Unjust? Perhaps.

But hey, that's the Law of Unintended Consequences. So please, for your own sakes as well as ours, choose your future words carefully. We're through the Looking Glass, the Red Queen is quite unreasonable and she'll be after all our heads if this goes too far.

And, if it comes to that, you each will have exactly two people to blame. The guy in your bathroom mirror who failed to comprehend the true nature of the "change" Barack Obama portended and Bill Clinton.

After all, it was Bill's idea.

Bro. Mike Vanderboegh

Gun Rights Evangelist to the Heathen Press
Sipsey Street Mission
PO Box 926
Pinson, AL 35126

Our Motto: "Saving Lives, One Ignorant Editorialist at a Time"

III
***

Both the reporter and the prof replied to Mike; here's his reply to the reporter:

Dear Bro. Witt,

Thank you for your prompt reply. If I may, let me take your points ad seriatim.


In a message dated 11/13/2008 1:40:01 P.M. Central Standard Time, HWitt@tribune.com writes:
Extremely well-written. Bravo.

MBV: Shucks, twas nothin'. I'm just a poor scribbler.


Two points:

First: I wish you had been standing next to me as I interviewed some of the noble gun buyers lined up in Houston gun stores this week, explaining how they needed to protect themselves from the "blacks"--some used decidedly less polite terms--who, inspired by Barack Obama's victory, would soon be threatening the sanctity of their homes.

MBV: No doubt true, as far as it goes. We can swap anecdotes all day long. Indeed, I'm sure there are also black folks and latinos who are arming out of similar racism-tinged motives. I have written before that the principal danger of the coming period is that we may end up in a three-sided race war. There is very little you can tell me about Kluxers and neoNazis that I don't already know. I have been fighting them at street level, eyeball to eyeball, for most of my life. Google my name if you don't believe me. When the Clintonista era Feds were giving certain favored members of the Aryan Republican Army bank robbery gang a pass, it was me and my militia buddies who embarrassed the FBI into arresting them with a poster campaign in Philadelphia. Punch in Michael Brescia and my name together and see what pops up.

The danger of Barack Obama is that he provides racial cover to what is actually an ideological divide, thus making the recruiting efforts of the Klan and the neoNazis more potent. Just as the presence of prominent Jewish American advocates of gun control such as Feinstein and Schumer help them make their case for anti-Semitism. I have never understood how members of minorities such as Jews and blacks could embrace gun control when it is so obviously against their better interests -- and so recently underscored in their own histories (the Holocaust and the Deacons). My friend Aaron Zelman of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership also gets quite eloquent on the subject.

Or perhaps you would have nodded in agreement at the gun store manager--an ex-marine Iraq War vet--who proudly explained how he took it upon himself as his personal mission to decline to sell any weapons to blacks, "Arabs" or any other ethnically-funny-looking customer who made the mistake of wandering into his shop. "I just keep busy at another counter and when they ask about a particular gun, I tell them it's all sold out."

MBV: Well, I've told you above where I stand, and have for decades, so you now know that's not true. As you're grasping for straws here, I'll let the insult go. Sorry that Texas seems to be a more racist place than Alabama, or perhaps you just don't hang out in the right sort of gun store. ;-)

Would all of those characters be distinguished members of your 3-percent club?

MBV: No, none of them would. I won't tie my flank to anyone who doesn't believe that the Constitution extends to all regardless of race, creed, color or religion. Anyone who knows me or my writing over the past fifteen years knows that.

Second: I still don't get how anyone could reasonably expect to defend his home from an intruder with a .50 calibre machine gun. I mean, you can't even hide something that big under your bed, for goodness sake.

MBV: Hell, Howard, we're not talking about Ma Deuces here, those are closely regulated under the National Firearms Act of 1934. But let's rephrase that to a ".50caliber Barrett semi-automatic rifle." Now if you've got the ten thousand dollars that it takes for one of those and the scope and ammo to go with it, I'll tell you the utility of THAT.

When the "intruder" is Janet Reno and her minions who come to your church with their armored vehicles to burn you out, a few Raufoss rounds to the weak spots in the armor can have a decided calming effect. You seem to think that the only "intruders" we need worry about are petty criminals and gang bangers who couldn't intentionally shoot themselves in the foot. The "intruders" we're worried about come with badges and uniforms and are sent by tyrants. Besides, if I had a Barrett M82, I wouldn't hide it under my bed. I'd have it out on the coffee table as a warning, pointed straight at the door. You obviously don't understand the dynamics of credible deterrence.

Regards,
Howard Witt

MBV: Ditto, Howard. Glad we had this opportunity to chat. If I can broaden your horizons I will count it worth the trouble.

Mike Vanderboegh
The alleged leader of a merry band of three percenters and founding member of the Sipsey Street Irregulars.

Now the prof:

Thanks for your prompt reply Doc. Like Howard's, I'll reply ad seriatim.

In a message dated 11/13/2008 1:34:59 P.M. Central Standard Time, agger@uta.edu writes:
Mike,

I found your missive below quite entertaining.

MBV: We aim to please. (That's a double entendre.) ;-)

It will probably displease you to learn that there is broad agreement between us (you and me) on many issues of substance.

MBV: Glad to hear it. And no, it doesn't displease me.

Please remember that my few comments in the Chicago newspaper article do not exhaust my views of this complex and interesting question: How should we interpret the Second Amendment? Now it is quite clear to me that most people buying guns in these post-election days are simply concerned that their 2nd Amendment rights might be constrained by this new administration.

MBV: Well, I've gotta confess, old Howard there kinda made ya sound like a raving loon, but then that just shows that he's not the only one who can jump to a conclusion. ;-)

Personally, I think that this is highly unlikely given that President-elect Obama has bigger issues on his plate.

MBV: From your mouth, to God's ears, Doc. But a lot of us folks don't think so. Remember, Obama doesn't have to write the bill, he just has to sign it when it crosses his desk. Very little effort involved on his part. Besdies, the big things are so huge, so likely intractable, that they'll want to show they're doin' somethin' with their new-fangled "mandate."

As a libertarian who grew up in a western state in which 'everyone' had a gun and fished, I can completely understand people's concern. I don't happen to hunt, but I fish, and I would be quite upset if I suddenly couldn't purchase top-water lures with which to catch bass, perhaps on grounds of cruelty to animals. In fact, I think fishing has an element of cruelty, even if one catches-and-releases, but I can rationalize it with reference to the food chain and certain ecological concerns about overstocking.

MBV: Heck yeah, it's a circle of life thing, and I don't hunt or fish. The Founders weren't worried about hunting either, and if anyone had suggested to them that the 2nd Amendment was about shooting furry animals, they would have laughed themselves to death -- after they threw the theorist out the second story window of the Green Dragon Tavern.

Having said all that, I do sense (I'm in a 'red' state, remember) that there is a certain (call it) racial anxiety surrounding Obama's election. And so perhaps a tiny fraction of people buying guns are also 'racially anxious' in this sense. Perhaps 1 in 1,000 people lined up at the local Fort Worth gun store fit this bill. I don't know; I haven't studied it. And my newspaper comment was an attempt to put myself in the shoes of this tenth of one percent and imagine what they might be thinking. As you well know, some people are not quite ready for a black President--the gun issue totally aside.

MBV: Sure. Take my "Yaller Dawg Democrat" mother-in-law. She called up my wife the day of the election and asked her who she voted for (She's been GOP since Reagan). My wife refused to tell her, as always, and then my mother-in-law offered that she "didn't vote for the black guy." Hey, nobody asked her. But then nobody asked my father-in-law who he wanted to vote for, but he voted straight Democrat ticket in the seven elections that took place AFTER he died in West Memphis, Arkansas. Kept resurrecting like Lazarus every election cycle until the family caught it and had him removed from the rolls.

You may also remember ACORN started in Arkansas.

As for me, I voted for Alan Keyes back in 2000 and would have voted for any black man who lined up with my principles this time. Thomas Sowell and Clarence Thomas come to mind. Unfortunately they were too honest to qualify as major party candidates.

Look, there will always be racism on all sides. What my fellow gunnies objected to was the slur that they were stocking up for racist motivations.

The reason I am an optimist about our collective future is that children don't see 'color', and they will inherit the earth. I think many adults, judging from the recent election results, don't see color either. Hopefully, those days will soon be behind us.

MBV: I hope you're right about not seeing color that is. I'm afraid that all the last election cycle proved to me is that frightened people flocked to a mesmerizing leftist narcissist, projecting all their hopes and dreams on a guy who can't possibly deliver on but a fraction of them.

Let me make one more candid comment. I remember during the election, perhaps early in the summer, when Obama made a remark about how certain people find salvation (or alleviate their anxiety) in 'guns and religion.' I can certainly understand how that would alienate people who are gun enthusiasts and religious. I imagine how I would feel if he had said 'bass fishermen and long-distance runners.'

I hope this attempt at dialogue has been at least modestly useful.

MBV: Dialogue is almost always useful, Doc. You have at least given me a reason to question my long-standing prejudice about bass-fishing long distance runners. ;-)

best,
ben agger

MBV: You too. However, I was serious about the period we are entering, and about the three percent. You ought to study us. Get started now with your research and you'll be the first out with a scholarly work after we win the next civil war that the Obamanoids inadvertently start. ;-)

What significance could there possibly be to what could be viewed as a mere "flame war" between opposing political partisans?

Just this: we have reached a point in this country's history where, as Billy Beck has pointed out repeatedly, metaphors such as "ideological war" simply fail.

Those metaphors are about to fail for one reason -- they are soon to be replaced by the real thing.

Think about this -- what will you do when:

1) Codrea's site goes off the air permanently, and he is incarcerated indefinitely as a "suspected domestic terrorist"?

2) Vanderboegh is killed "resisting arrest"?

3) Aaron Zelman of JPFO dies of a "heart attack" during questioning by the Department of Homeland Security?

4) the new AWB -- only without the '94 AWB grandfather clause permitting continued possession of weapons and gear purchased prior to enactment -- passes and is signed into law by the new President?

5) the FBI and BATFE (just two of the Obama Administration's Federal law enforcement enforcement agencies), acting on one of a sheaf of executive orders signed by the new President on the afternoon of 1/20/09 and pursuant to the new AWB, start using 4473 form information to confiscate assault weapons and accoutrements purchased since Election Day?

6) your local police department, already facing a Collapse-driven budget catastrophe, agrees to assist the Federal firearms enforcement agencies as the price for continued Federal funding and establishes "rolling safety stop" roadblocks to serach for firearms and other contraband?

6) you awake from a deep sleep to hear your dog's frantic barking abruptly stop, followed immediately by a splintering crash as your home's front and back doors are "dynamically entered" by hooded figures in black tactical gear?

Vanderboegh is dead right when he says that we are through the Looking Glass.

Best get all kinds of things sorted out in the remaining 66 days...

Tempus fugit.