This article was printed from KeepAndBearArms.com.
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GRPC – Informed Voting Is Key
By Nicki Fellenzer
September 26, 2004
KeepAndBearArms.com -- If there is one message with which Chairman of the
Citizens Committee of the Right to Keep and
Bear Arms and Founder of the Second Amendment
Foundation wants gun owners and gun advocates to leave this year’s
Gun Rights Policy Conference,
it is “Know and understand for whom you cast your vote this year.” Yes,
the theme of this year’s conference is “Ban Gun Bans!” But Alan Gottlieb
asserts that in order to ensure the continued demise of unconstitutional gun
control laws and downfall of gun bans, Americans must understand the importance
of this year’s Presidential elections. That is
why every theme – every speech – every presentation at the 2004 Gun Rights
Policy Conference, held at the Crystal City Mariott in Arlington, Virginia
September 24-26, tied in inextricably to one simple message: Election 2004 is
crucial. John Kerry and his anti-freedom allies are a danger to gun owners.
They are a danger to the Second Amendment. And they are a danger to the Right
to Keep and Bear Arms. The
list of speakers and panelists reads like the Who’s Who of the gun rights
battle. Dr. John Lott spoke of media
bias. He emphasized the central message of his latest book, “The Bias Against
Guns” -- the concerted media effort to “spike” pro-gun facts and ensure that the
anti-gun message tugs at the heartstrings of the general public pushing them
inexorably toward an emotionalist anti-freedom stand.
National Rifle Association Executive Vice
President Wayne LaPierre recounted his debates and encounters with United
Nations gun banners, the audacity of those who never experienced freedom in
America and who rely on the state not only to protect them from the criminal
element, but to grant them what should be theirs in the first place –- their
rights –- and who condemn Americans who treasure their freedoms and cherish
their rights as “selfish and arrogant.” A panel
of well-known writers and gun rights advocates, such as
Independence Institute’s David Kopel and
Gun Week Senior Editor Dave Workman discussed Michael Moore and the media, their
lies, their propaganda, their misrepresentations and their mission to support
those who would relieve you of your rights for “the common good.” The
agenda also includes a forum on the 2004 Election, domestic security and
individual liberties and discussions on the right to carry. But
ultimately, everything goes back to the vote.
Anti-gun politicians such as John Kerry are successfully using the media to
falsely promote their image as a protector of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
United Nations organizations are promoting lies about the effectiveness of gun
control and misinformation about firearm deaths. Sarah Brady and her political
minions are effectively diverting the issue from the Second Amendment, natural
rights and the ability to defend those rights, without which the existence of
those rights is hollow, to hunting and conservation, which they superciliously
and falsely claim is the Second Amendment’s intent.
Informed gun owners and gun rights advocates know better. We know
that the Second Amendment is not about hunting. We
understand that the rights to life, liberty and property are fundamental rights,
and that the ability to defend those rights is their natural consequence. We
further realize that having a firm philosophical grounding about the importance
of our vote is paramount to ensuring that politicians do not continue killing
the Second Amendment. And we
appreciate that in order to be truly informed this election season, we have to
look beyond the propaganda, beyond the media’s feeble attempts to obfuscate the
truth and beyond the shrill, hysterical shrieking of Michael Moore and the
talking heads of the media. Only
the informed, educated and rational vote of every gun owner and gun rights
advocate will help the demise of gun bans. |
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