Some of my earliest memories are of geese flying south in lazy vees overhead as tractors criss-crossed the fields. All the nearby farmers joined together in harvesting each others fall crops, neighborly cooperation at an urgent pace for one main reason: hunting season was coming. My father loved to hunt most of his life, though in his later years he developed that sympathy for the prey and awareness of mortality typical in older men that made him as happy to come home empty-handed as successful. When I was young he taught me to handle a rifle, stressing the weight of responsibility of holding such a serious instrument in my hands. That same sense of responsibility extended to the rest of life as well. Through my dads father, grandfather and great-grandfather, from generation to generation were passed lessons of muzzle discipline and personal discipline, the principles of safe gun handling and the principles of honorable living. Throughout my life I have found this thread to be the same. Though our life stories vary, gun owners share a centuries-old American heritage and a timeless creed. We can recite the four rules of gun safety and we understand the importance of integrity. We belong to a proud line of sportsmanship and personal morality. We dont want to rely on someone else, we think its our responsibility to take care of ourselves. But as the world has changed, the very traits we possess and that made America what it is have been somehow been relabeled as a problem. We are scorned, regulated, recorded and feared. Yet though drunks kill people with cars, were not all required to prove our sobriety every time we buy one. And just because criminals rob stores, the rest of us dont have to produce good guy cards to enter. People, its time. Time for us to stand up and refuse to accept the one size fits all regulations that punish millions of us law-abiding citizens for the acts of criminals or the pitiable sickness of mental illness. Time for us to loudly proclaim, I will not give up my freedom for the sins of others! We have gathered here because we have all reached that place where were unwilling to be pushed any further or back down any more. Weve staked our ground, looked up at the sky and said, Here I stand. I can do no other. Were organizing, were strategizing, and were preparing ourselves for a fight on which we will spend years of our lives. And it starts right here, right now, with a single government official who has decided its her right to stand between us and our freedoms. She thinks her beliefs outweigh our convictions. Its time for us to prove her wrong. Here and now. I hope for the honor of being the first to make the phone ring in Laurie Jinkins office tomorrow, but more than that I hope you wlll all race me for the privilege. Lets make sure were her only order of business this week, and that making her ideology subservient to the will of the people by releasing our bills becomes her top priority. In a few hours we shoulder our task and we preserve our freedom. See you on the battlefield!
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 09:57:01 +0000
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