The “First
Monday Experience” in Washington State
The organizers of “First
Monday 2000” in the state of Washington did not have the events go quite as
they had planned, thanks to members of the Washington State Tyranny Response
Team (WSTRT), and other dedicated pro-rights activists.
First
Monday sponsored events in a number of venues in Washington, including Seattle,
Tacoma, Pullman and Spokane. The Seattle events took place on Monday the 2nd
at Seattle University School of Law and the University of Washington School of
Law and on Tuesday the 3rd at the University of Washington Medical
School. Since the UW School of Law
event included Joe Waldron of the Washington Arms Collectors as a panel
discussion member, WSTRT chose to attend the Seattle University event on Monday,
in order to maximize our coverage.
The first event at Seattle
University took the format of a panel presentation and follow-up Q&A.
This was preceded by a brief address by L'Nayim Shuman-Austin, who emceed
the event, and the viewing of a 30-minute “documentary” film narrated by
actor Martin Sheen. This film was
titled “America: Up In Arms”.
The
producers of the film provided the following synopsis:
“The film tells the
stories of three families who have lost children to gun violence through
unintentional shooting, murder and suicide. It includes moving footage from
the Million Mom March and conversations with parents,
doctors, law enforcement, legislators, youth, and others. The film will
present the epidemic of gun violence in America and provide examples of
successful activism by citizens from all walks of life.”
Our take? A typical
anti-freedom fear-mongering propaganda fest.
Following
the film we were treated to a series of 10-minute presentations by a panel of
“experts” on gun violence. First
to speak was Charles Lind, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney for King County,
Washington.
Mr.
Lind was, in my estimation, by far the most reasonable and even-handed of the
presenters. He described the way in
which the prosecutor’s office handles cases of gun violence.
He went into some detail on how the Prosecutor’s Office is cracking
down on youth offenders, and youth gangs. His
talk detailed the efforts to curtail these incidents by taking a very hard-line
approach to prosecuting youth offenders. This
seemed to irritate the next speaker, Ms. Simmie A. Baer of the Public Defender
Association. Ms Baer was not the
sharpest tool in the shed, despite the fact that Washington Law and Politics
recently named her “one of the best lawyers in the state”.
Her focus was primarily on punishing the evil guns responsible for the
cases Mr. Lind is forced to prosecute. She
expounded at length on the injustice inherent in the current practice of
prosecuting juvenile gun offenders as adults. (Poor babies.)
Next to address the admiring throng was Assistant Chief of Police John
Pirak of the Seattle Police Department. Asst.
Chief Pirak struck this writer as a purely political sycophant of the smarmiest
stripe. He made reference to a recent incident which occurred in
Seattle’s Pioneer Square district, in which a crowd of “200-300” rap music
aficionados gathered outside a dance club well after closing.
In spite of the presence in the area of some 20 or more Seattle Police
officers assigned ahead of time to control this potentially unruly gathering, 4
individuals were shot during a violent altercation.
To their credit, SPD managed to “capture” 2 of the offending handguns
(after the fact). We made note that
we could not have better demonstrated the inability of police officers to
protect citizens from violence.
Next
up was the chief organizer of the event, the Executive Director of CeaseFire
Foundation of Washington, Bruce Gryniewski.
Mr. Gryniewski began his monologue with a bit of “audience
participation”, in which he asked all audience members to rise.
He then asked all those who had either been personally involved in an
incident of gun violence, or who had a friend or family member so involved, to
remain standing while all others sat back down.
This resulted in about half of the audience remaining on their feet.
This was his way of demonstrating the broad scope of the gun violence
issue. His speech was rife with all
the hackneyed clichés with which the anti-freedom crowd is wont to attack our
rights. Among the malapropisms he
used were: “Do you really need an
ASSAULT WEAPON to hunt deer?” Mr.
Gryniewski is evidently in a state of blissful ignorance concerning what is and
is not an assault weapon…
I need not go into laborious detail concerning the content of his speech; you
can find examples of every word he spoke in the literature and websites of
Handgun Control, Inc., the Violence Policy Center, the Million Misinformed
Mommies, or (insert gun grabber organization of your choice here).
The
final speaker was Mark Aoki-Fordham, a board member of the American
Civil Liberties Union of Washington. Such
a piece of work was Mr. Aoki. He
explained to us what a terrible misconception we had been living under, to whit
the difference between individual rights, and collective rights, and how the
Second Amendment falls into the latter category. This provided one of the highlights of the evening when KABA
member and WSTRT co-founder Bob Anderson took the floor as the first participant
in the question-and-answer phase. Bob
began by commending Mr. Aoki and the ACLU for their successful efforts and
tireless advocacy of the Bill of Rights, then asked,
“Is
the Second Amendment the only place in the Bill of Rights, the Constitution
and, for that matter, the Declaration of Independence where ‘the people’
doesn’t mean the people?”
Mr.
Aoki seemed unprepared for the question. He
squirmed and stammered for a few moments, then attempted an answer, which fell
flat – even, it appeared, to the largely pro-“gun control” audience. Bob then held the floor for several minutes, offering
solutions to the problem of violence and abuse of firearms ranging from ending
the “War on Drugs” to K-12 firearms safety instruction.
Surprisingly, the suggestions elicited some positive comments from
several audience members at the reception, which followed the Q&A.
At this point, emcee L'Nayim
Shuman-Austin began to look desperate - she kept looking to Bruce Gryniewski to
help bail her out. No help there. She finally spoke up, "In the interest of time, um, we'd
like to, um, hear from some other members of the audience...” So, Bob politely
acquiesced. She called on another
gentleman and lo and behold, he was another pro-rights activist (unaffiliated,
for the time being, with WSTRT) who nailed the panel quite effectively on the
issue of registration.
Following him was WSTRT
member, Robert McKercher, who, following Mr. Gryniewski’s lead, engaged in
some “audience participation” of his own. He asked everyone in the audience
and on the panel who was between the ages of 17 and 45 to stand.
He then asked those who were older than 45 and under 63 years of age to
stand, if they had ever served in the Armed Forces of the United States.
I was duly impressed when Assistant Chief John Pirak of SPD stood, as did
Deputy Prosecutor Charles Lind and Ms. Shuman-Austin.
At this point Robert gleefully intoned, “welcome to the militia!” Mr.
Gryniewski immediately sat down, with a flustered look on his face, turned to
the still-standing L'Nayim Shuman-Austin and said, “I don’t have to be in
the militia, do I?” I took this
opportunity to speak up with “aren’t you familiar with Title 10 of the
United States Code?” Mr. Lind
then leaned over to the distraught Gryniewski and said, “He’s right, you
know… Title 10…” Mr. Lind
admitted to us later that he was surprised at the content of the presentation.
He said he was expecting it to be about addressing violence, not "gun
control."
By the end of our allotted
time, a total of 5 questions were taken from the audience… and every person
given the floor was one of US! That’s
right… not ONE question taken from the floor came from the intended audience. After the questions were finished, Ms. Shuman-Austin looked
ready to find a burrow to hide in. Before
leaving the auditorium, I managed to get to the podium, and give both Mr. Lind
and Mr. Aoki copies of “The Unabridged Second Amendment”, (an interview by
L. Neil Shulman of Professor Roy Copperud, America’s foremost expert on
English language usage in which the meaning and intent of the language of the
Second Amendment is revealed to mean exactly what it says) Stewart explaining
that they need not resort to tortuous legal dissertations in order to understand
what the Founder’s intent was… just read the sentence.
During
the banquet, Bob and I, along with the other WSTRT members and other pro-2A
attendees spent some 90 minutes in discussions with many of the audience
members, with some degree of success in getting points across.
Day 2, the University of Washington Medical
School
The
second event we attended took place the following evening at the University of
Washington. Unbeknownst to us, this
event was to be presented in an entirely different format than the first; this
was to be a seminar format, no discussion or Q&A. This made it somewhat more difficult to interject our
objections and comments, though we were able to make ourselves heard,
nonetheless.
This
event took place at the University’s Medical School, and was billed as a
“Gun Violence Policy seminar”. It
was quickly clear, however, that it was merely a thinly disguised “gun
control” indoctrination session. The
speakers included Dr. McCormick, of the UW Medical Center, Dr. Fred Rivera, from
the Harborview Medical Center Injury Prevention Research Program, Dr. Roy
Farrell, of the Board of Directors of Washington Physicians For Social
Responsibility (co-sponsors of the event) and a member of the Washington State
Medical Association, a sociologist from Colombia (who expounded on the
international ramifications of gun violence).
Dr.
McCormick, a warm, sympathetic and clearly academic elderly gentleman spoke
first. He recalled, with heartfelt
sorrow, the murder of a colleague who had been killed with a handgun by a
failing medical student, who then turned the gun on himself.
Sadly, he blamed the gun, not the student.
Following Dr. McCormick, Dr Rivera took the podium.
He gave a slide presentation and lecture on the merits of “gun
control” using the
long since debunked “studies” of Dr. Arthur Kellerman, in which Dr.
Rivera took part. Dr. Rivera reeked
of pompous superiority, a self-righteous windbag of epic proportions.
With few exceptions, everything Dr. Rivera said was a lie.
When he suggested that banning firearms would be an effective way to
“end” gun violence, Bob asked, “Would that require repealing the Second
Amendment?” His terse reply: “We’re not going to talk about that.”
So much for the free exchange of ideas.
Next
up, Captain Lockbox, a.k.a. Dr. Farrell of Washington Physicians for Social
Responsibility. His presentation
consisted of more bogus statistics on slides, and details of his involvement in
the effort to pass the Child Access Prevention law (CAP).
This law aims to make it a felony for a gun owner to leave a firearm
accessible to a child. Several WSTRT members present attempted to interject at this
point that the opposition to this law centers mainly on the refusal of
proponents to write in exemptions for unusual circumstances, such as the theft
of a firearm. At this point, the
crowd began to get somewhat surly, one audience member angrily rising to say,
“We did not come here to listen to what you have to say!” Bob Anderson politely replied, “All right, we are not here
to disrupt the seminar. We simply
assumed that you are here with a genuine desire to seek a solution the problem
of gun-related violence, as are we. We
simply want to ensure that you are getting the full story.”
Dr. John Pickens, of the University Medical Center, who organized the
lecture, interjected, saying “There will be time for a discussion period after
the presentations.”
Dr.
Farrell continued, explaining how the proposed law would require the use of
lockboxes, trigger locks, and the like. Toward
the end of this exhortation, he pulled a Simplex-type pistol lockbox from
beneath the podium, explaining, “One of these can be opened in 3 to 5 seconds,
giving virtually immediate access to the firearm inside.”
As a matter of demonstration, he then proceeded to key the buttons on the
lock, and turned the handle to release the lid.
Amazingly, it refused to open. He
fumbled with it for several seconds, resetting the lock and trying again.
When this second attempt failed as well, there arose from three WSTRT
voices, as one, “BANG! YOU ARE DEAD!” As
he continued to fumble with the mechanism for another several seconds, WSTRT
member Dean Fuller intoned “YOUR WIFE IS NOW BEING RAPED.”
After yet a third unsuccessful attempt, Dean again spoke: “NOW YOUR
DAUGHTER IS BEING SODOMIZED!” At this point, Dr. Farrell set the box on the podium,
and finally managed to get it open. I
took this opportunity to say “You have just made our point for us, Doctor.”
The audience was somewhat subdued, but to his credit, Dr. Farrell took this (for
him) unhappy turn of events with a surprising amount of aplomb, immediately
continued with his dissertation, showing the padding in the box, and the holes
in the back of it which may be used to affix it to a wall.
Thanks
for the demo, Doc.
Following
“Captain Lockbox”, the Columbian sociologist (whose name was unfortunately
not written down by your intrepid reporter) gave a brief presentation on the
massive numbers of gun deaths in Latin American countries, Columbia and Brazil
in particular. He went on to note
that his studies showed a marked improvement in these statistics in countries
that did not have bothersome Constitutions that prevented their governments from
instituting mass firearm confiscations. While
his conclusions were obviously delusional (a simple examination of the results
of gun banning in England
and Australia bear this out,
of course), his recommended methodology met with resounding approval from the
audience, and feelings of cold foreboding from yours truly.
Dr.
Pickens rose, and rather than announcing the beginning of the discussion period,
stated flatly “I think we’ll end this now, thank you for coming.”
We passed out flyers and informational handouts we had prepared, engaging
as many audience members in conversation as possible before they ran from the
room.
Several
of the participants had positive comments to make, one girl, who had been
sitting directly in front of us, going so far as to whisper under her breath
“You know, I do want to end gun violence, but I do not want to lose my right
to keep a firearm.”
Score
one for the good guys…
KABA NOTE: It is with
great appreciation that we publish stories like this, where our members and
fellow liberty advocates get out into the public anti-self-defense forums and
enlighten the misguided gun grabbers of the world. Thank you, Jeff Stewart
and Bob Anderson, and all of your local allies, for braving the tides of
ignorance in order to affect positive change. May your uplifting and
inspiring story spark others to rise to the occasion and help save this nation.
