Dennis Prager is one of my favorite Conservative thinkers.  He is a talk radio host.  (Oh!  My goodness!)  This vocation makes him a target of the Progressive Left that is driving this country into what I believe to be a web of Marxist Socialism.  Dennis Prager is also a Rabbi, which gives the lie to the Leftist canard that all Conservatives and Second Amendment supporters are anti-Semites.  In fact, a considerable number of important Conservative thinkers are Jews.  David Horowitz, Alan Gottlieb, Dick Morris, Mark Levin, Aaron Zelman, and Michael Savage come to mind.

For the record, I am not Jewish.  I was raised a Methodist, but stopped attending the church over its support of the World Council of Churches and the Religious Left’s fascination with gun control.

David Horowitz was a Red Diaper Baby, a founder of the 1960’s New Left, and a pioneer of the anti-Vietnam War Movement.  He initially split with the American Communists over their failure to break ties with a Black Panther group in California.  The Panthers murdered a friend that Horowitz had placed with the group as a bookkeeper.  Horowitz knows the machinations of the Left as well as anyone.  While he does not typically deal with Second Amendment issues, his books, Left Illusions and The Shadow Party should be required reading in every high school in America.  (They won’t be read as long as young people are required to sing songs in schools praising Barack Obama.)

Alan Gottlieb is a guiding light in the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and the Second Amendment Foundation.  These groups put on a national gun rights conference every year that should be attended, if at all possible, by everyone interested in the fundamental, natural right to armed self-defense against crime, tyranny, and genocide enjoyed by American Citizens and recognized by the Second Amendment.  Gottlieb has written numerous books, including Politically Correct Guns, and The Gunrights Fact Book.

Dick Morris was the brains of the Clinton White House, before philosophical differences and personality rifts deprived Bill and Hillary of his considerable talents.  He knows more about the Clintons than anyone else who is alive and willing to talk.  His latest book is entitled, Catastrophe.

Mark Levin is another radio talk show host.  Ooh!  Scary, if you are a Liberal.  He has written several books, including Liberty and Tyranny, a Conservative Manifesto, and Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is destroying America.

Aaron Zelman founded Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.  (JPFO)  Their cartoon comic book series, Grandpa Jack, should be required reading in every grade school in this country.  (This will not happen as long as the teachers’ unions control the classrooms.)  The JPFO Website is rightly famous for its “Genocide List” which chronicles the relationship between gun control and genocide throughout world history.

Michael Savage is the stage name of another radio talk show host.  Oooh!  He has written a book entitled Liberalism is Mental Disorder, which pretty much sums up his take on the situation.

In terms of talk show style, Prager is a gentle listener who believably says that “He prefers clarity to agreement.”  Levin and Savage do not suffer fools lightly. 

Horowitz is a tireless campaigner for intellectual liberty on college campuses.  His Websites, Frontpage Magazine, and DiscovertheNetworks.com, track the interlocking web of billionaire-funded organizations that fuel the Democrat Political Machine.  Gottlieb works with the National Rifle Association in filing lawsuits against repressive anti-gun regulations.  Zelman’s JPFO often criticizes the NRA for compromises regarding gun rights issues.  Savage frequently proclaims a pox on both the GOP and the Democrat Party and has threatened to start a third party movement.  Morris is a regular on Fox News.  (Oh!  No!  Not Fox News!)  He also has his own website and an online newsletter.

The above individuals are Conservative Jews.  I believe their contributions to the cause of American freedom are invaluable.  The Liberal stereotype of Conservatives as angry, skinhead, mean-spirited. knuckle-dragging, racist bigots clearly does not hold water.  This  divide between Liberal dogma and reality must be a troubling intellectual thorn in the side for honest thinkers on the Left.  Actually, I’m a bit puzzled myself.  Given the painful memory of the Nazi Holocaust’s campaign of death against unarmed Jews and the current administration’s apparent inability to deal with Iran’s nuclear threat to Israel, it is somewhat surprising to me that more American Jews do not embrace the Second Amendment, other conservative values, and the Republican Party.  (JPFO has a section on the Website that deals with this issue.)

Def Mech

Of the 5 states with the highest denial rates, Colorado led the country in the percentage of wrongful denials.  71% of Colorado denials were reversed on appeal.

In the Centennial State, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducts background checks for individuals who buy firearms from licensed dealers and at gun shows.  The U.S. Government also runs a background check system through the FBI.

The FBI National Instant Check System (NICS) had only a 4% denial reversal rate for 2008. According to my calculations, the NICS check was almost 18 times more accurate in protecting honest citizens than the CBI background check.

Colorado Residents, please contact the Governor of Colorado, your State Senator, and your State Representative. Ask that the state move the CBI check to the NICS.

*Source: Workman, Dave, “Nearly 11,000 wrongly denied by background checks in 2008,” The new Gun Week, Second Amendment Foundation, Bellevue, WA, 09-15-09, Page 2.

Def Mech

Hypothetical “discussion” between a student and a teacher in a public school:

“No, Johnny, you can’t tell people about going hunting or target shooting.”

“Why not?”

“Because those things involve, well, you know, things that go boom or things that are sharp.”

“You mean like firecrackers and sharp-pointed scissors?”

“No! You know what I mean. Things that stupid rednecks use to make themselves feel big and powerful.”

“Oh. You mean sports cars!”

“No! I don’t mean sports cars. Don’t you cop an attitude with me, young man!” In a whisper, “I mean guns and knives; things that nice people don’t talk about, or don’t even think about, unless they are used by police or government agents in the movies or on TV. Now, don’t ever bring this up again, or you’ll be in detention until you’re twenty-five.”

(See my post, “Zero Tolerance=Zero Intelligence,” 02-12-09, tagged “Culture of informers” and “Zero Tolerance.”)

Another prime example of the cleverness of the Left in shaping young minds was the original lesson plan for the President’s speech this week to schoolchildren. (See Mike Rosen’s article, “Big Brother in Schools, Obama’s speech was early indoctrination,” The Denver Post, 09-10-09, Page 11B. You can’t miss the Lefty cartoon right above the article and under the headline.) (See my posts under the Category “Media Bias.”)

The lesson plan I am talking about is the one that was formulated before the country found out what Obama’s minions had in mind. Suffering from the angry reaction to political indoctrination in the original outline, the Administration’s education gurus removed the offending items.

What was so insidious about the original lesson plan? There were two subtle psychological ploys at work. The plan called for the students to write a paper describing how Obama’s speech had “inspired” them. The psychological kicker here is the implied assumption that the individual student had been “inspired” by Obama’s speech. What do you suppose would have happened had a student written that he or she had not been “inspired” by the President’s speech? I suspect there would have been a serious “discussion” between Teacher and student.

The expectation of the Educational Establishment, of powerful adults in charge of discipline, grading, promotion, and even continued attendance in school, would have obviously been that students would have been “inspired.” Kids aren’t stupid. They know what is expected of them and they have some idea of what is going to happen, if they don’t meet expectations.

The vast majority of students, even those who didn’t agree with, or who didn’t know anything about the President’s policies or agendas, would have felt pressured to write something positive about Obama’s “inspirational” speech. Teachers would have no doubt prompted the younger students with “suggestions” about how the speech “might” have inspired them, if the students couldn’t come up with an “appropriate” response.

The second ploy is a subliminal psychological technique bordering on hypnosis. “Write yourself a letter telling yourself how you can “help the President.” This bit of mental manipulation reminds me of a slick insurance salesman I encountered a few years ago, shortly after I completed a comprehensive course in unconscious communication techniques.

The salesman ran about eleven subliminal sales techniques on me that night in my apartment. These strategies were designed to influence me outside the awareness of my conscious mind. The verbal pattern that I still remember from his presentation is essentially a post hypnotic suggestion.

“Mark, when you need insurance, I want you to say to yourself, “Call John.” (The names have been changed to protect the guilty.) “John” had some rapport with me. I considered him to be an authority. There would have been a pretty good chance that when I needed insurance, I would say to myself, “Call John;” especially if I didn’t know the game he was playing. (No. I didn’t buy insurance, but then, I understood the game.)

If I am a child in a school run by adults who have a great deal of power over me, there is a high probability that I am going to internalize their message, presented as part of an “official” lesson plan, “How can I help the President?” Help the President do what? Get reelected? Meet his partisan political goals? Socialize medicine? Support gun control?

Enter our old friends “Cognitive Consonance” and “Cognitive Dissonance.” These are psychological terms. They have to do with the way a person organizes his or her mental world. They basically mean that ideas that agree with my view of reality are easy for me to accept and that ideas that don’t correspond to my worldview make me nervous. I will tend to embrace compatible ideas and reject or dismiss contrary information. (See my posts under the Category, “Psychology.”)

There is also what I call an “investment component” in the “Consonance” and “Dissonance” paradigm. The more of my time and effort that I put into the support of an idea, the harder it is for me to change my mind about it.

A personal example: I have put over a thousand hours in passing out Second Amendment literature at gun shows and other functions. If I were to change my mind and embrace the concept that the American People should be disarmed for their own good, I would be faced with a situation in which I had “wasted” a significant portion of my life on the “wrong” side of the issue. That would be a gut-wrenching psychological experience that would have a profound effect on my psychological landscape.

David Horowitz, author of Left Illusions and The Shadow Party, co-authored with Richard Poe, went through such a transformation following the murder of his friend Betty Van Patter by a Black Panther group in California.  (Horowitz was an important leader in the New Left and an outspoken and effective critic of the U.S. war effort in Vietnam.)  Horowitz went to other members of the American Left and Anti-war Movements to urge a cessation of support for the Panthers. He was told, in effect, by his “friends” that the injustices of the evil Capitalist System sometimes forced “oppressed people” to commits acts like murder. It took Horowitz years to explore his belief system and reorient his thinking to his current position that the Socialist and “Progressive” Movements are nihilistic and morally bankrupt. (See pages 85-90 in Left Illusions, Spence Publishing Company, Dallas, Texas, 2003, for his initial reaction to the killing of his friend.)

Forcing vulnerable school children to write how the President “inspires” them and forcing them to write letters to themselves as to how they can “help” the President create experiences that become building blocks of cognitive consonance. “I wrote the paper that ‘said’ that I was inspired. How can I now not be inspired by Obama?” “I wrote myself a letter about how I can ‘help’ the President. How can I not do everything I can to help him?”

It would take a measure of psychological sophistication that I believe is far beyond the grasp of most school children to say to themselves something like the following. “OK. I don’t agree with, or I don’t know about what the President is up to, but the teacher said I’ve got to do the writing assignments. I’ll do them, but I’ll make up my own mind regarding what I think about the President’s plans.”

You’ll notice that I slipped in a psychological jab in the phrase “…what the President is up to,…” By using that language, instead of saying something like “what the President wants,…” I am implying that there is a covert motive behind Obama’s actions. The ability to use unconscious communication cuts both ways, but I’m not afraid of an honest debate in the marketplace of ideas. Beware of people who don’t show you the man behind the curtain of Mainstream Media adulation and obfuscation. (There I go again!)

By the way, the same dynamic is operational in the Pledge of Allegiance, The National Anthem, God Bless America, America the Beautiful, and the oath of office taken by every American government official and military person. It was in the loyalty oaths to America rejected by Left-wing teachers in the 1950’s during the so-called “Red Scare.” The more that you say you will do something, the more likely you are to do it. Failure to follow through conjures up personal internal images of untruthfulness, weakness, and indecision.

I don’t want to see myself as a liar, a weakling, or indecisive. I am likely to continue to think and act in consonance with my previous oral and written statements and behaviors.

The difference between the oath of office and a pledge to the President, is that the oath of office is a vow to “…protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.” The pledge to the President, is, well, a pledge to Obama. I do not believe that forcing such a commitment to the support of one individual is an appropriate exercise of power for the educational system of a democratic republic.

The sin committed by those who would have school children, in effect, pledge allegiance to one man, is not that they were successful, but that they tried to succeed.

Def Mech

The problem with the bill is that the “No Fly” Lists are notoriously inaccurate to the point that the bold print comment on Page 8B of The Denver Post on 05-31-09 reads, “Security: Mistaken IDs of fliers on watch lists happen ‘daily.” According to the Post article starting on Page 1B, “Name’s not same?  That just won’t fly,”  there are about 400,000 people on the watch lists. 95% of these folks are not U.S. citizens, according to the story. Let’s see. That means there are about 20,000 chances that your name could match the name of a citizen on a watch list.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has a little different view on the watch lists.  The ACLU staff believes that there are over a million names on the lists and that the lists are growing by leaps and bounds.  You do the math!

Of course, your name could be Edward Kennedy, whose name actually did show up on a watch list. I imagine that the Senator had an easier time getting off the list than would you or I. You see the government doesn’t have to tell you how you got on the list and there is an unholy amount of bureaucratic red tape involved in trying to get off the list, if you are a “common” citizen. Did I mention that until you get off the list, you probably are not legally eligible to own a gun?

But was Kennedy flagged because his name matched the name of a suspected terrorist who happened to be a citizen, or is there an Irishman named Kennedy who is associated with a faction of the Irish Republican Army. Think about all the old and new terrorist organizations in various countries around the world. MS 13, FALN (Puerto Rico), the Mexican Mafia, PLF, HAMAS, the Animal Liberation Front (US) the Earth Liberation Front (US), Al Qaeda, the Japanese Red Army, the Aryan Nations (US), Hezbollah, the Shining Path, and the Basque Fatherland and Liberty organization, to name a few. What are the odds that your name matches somebody, somewhere on a watch list?

As far as we know, the Obama Administration hasn’t started putting Tea Party members on the lists, but who knows? If you are against Obamacare, your neighbors may have snitched you out to the White House Web Site on “misinformation” or “disinformation” on the socialized medicine issue.

Returning veterans, opponents of abortion, and certainly advocates for the right to armed self-defense against crime, tyranny, and genocide are probably candidates for a spot on the “No Fly” Lists. (Remember the Homeland Security Report?)  George Orwell got it right in 1984.  “Big Brother” really is watching.

Keep an eye on this bill. It fits in “nicely” with H.R. 2159, which allows you to be stripped of your legal right to own a gun if the Attorney General “suspects” you of being a terrorist. See my post, ” As we were saying…,” dated 05-21-09, tagged ” H.R. 2159.”

“Eternal vigilance…”

Def Mech

Note to Chicago City Government Officials: criminals don’t obey laws.  Gun makers are not flooding your city with firearms for the criminal market.  More reasonable gun laws elsewhere are not the reason that you have a problem. 

If Britain had the criminal elements and gang bangers that you have, Britain would have a worse situation with violence than they do now, after they passed their handgun ban and began collecting sharp-pointed kitchen knives.  If gun control worked, both Chicago and Britain would be much safer than they are.

If Japan had Chicago’s gangsters, the Japanese would have a higher crime rate.  Please read David Kopel’s book, The Samurai, the Mountie and the Cowboy, Should America Adopt the Gun Controls of Other Democracies?  Prometheus Books, Buffalo, New York, 1992, pages 431 and 432.  Consider Mr. Kopel’s conclusion that social controls and not gun control are the reasons for lower crime rates in these two island nations on opposite sides of the globe.

Baseball bats!  That’s it!  Baseball bats!  A baseball bat murderer in Boulder Colorado was just sent to prison on DNA evidence.  Maybe if you ban baseball bats, that will solve the Chicago violence problem.

You never know, bats might the answer.  If we could only get them out of some of the Chicago belfreys…

Def Mech

The headline, “Actor to testify against killer,” appeared in The Denver Post on 01-27-09 on Page 14A.  The article described Mr. Grammer’s efforts to adequately punish one of his sister’s killers and save society from further outrages.

Bob Russel, a former Colorado Springs District Attorney, told The Denver Post Reporter that Mr. Grammer “felt guilty…because he didn’t protect…” his sister.  Of course, he couldn’t have kept her from harm, because it is impossible for good people to shield everyone they love from the evil actions of felons and sociopaths. Nevertheless, this sense of guilt is often psychologically transformed in the minds of relatives and other loved ones of crime victims into a visceral hatred for anything associated with the crime.

We frequently see this defense mechanism of displacement at work in cases where the weapon involved happened to be a firearm.  The displacement of feelings of guilt, anger, and overwhelming loss that accompanies  a fatal crime helps to ease the burden of the survivor by providing a scapegoat, a target for the negative emotions that are eating away at the grieving individual.  An unreasoning fear of weapons may also be described by the term hoplophobia.  (See my post “Displacement as a defense mechanism in the irrational fear of guns,” 08-17-2008, tagged “hoplophobia”)

To my knowledge, and I believe to his credit, Mr. Grammer has never advocated banning knives or imposing draconian restrictions on the people who own them.  Instead of displacing his anger, Mr. Grammer has appropriately directed it against the perpetrator of the horrible crime against his sister.  By his actions, Mr. Grammer is taking a positive step to insure that a dangerous felon is not released back into society to kill again.

It would be a good thing, if all relatives and other loved ones of crime victims were this rational and precise in their response to tragedy.  Sometimes, however, it is harder to target specific perpetrators. What happens if the criminals are out of reach of the survivors, because they have been killed, committed suicide, or evaded the law?  It would seem to make sense to direct blame against individuals in the criminal classes who commit violence, e.g., muggers, killers, and rapists, to name a few.

Unfortunately, in many cases, survivors’ anger is inappropriately directed at law-abiding citizens and heretofore-legal behaviors.  I am referring, of course, to legal gun ownership and the right of Americans to armed self-defense against crime, tyranny, and genocide recognized by the Second Amendment.

We, who struggle to preserve that right against all infringement, owe Mr. Grammer a vote of thanks for his courage and insight in opposing the parole of a triple murderer.  It makes sense to punish offenders. It does not make sense to disarm or hinder potential victims.

Def Mech

Mike Littwin’s piece, “Is strategy a concealed weapon?” appears on Page 2A of the 07-24-09 edition of The Denver Post.  The Post editorial entitled, “Senators misfire on gun measure” is on Page 10B of the same paper.

“Political cover” involves action taken by elected officials to inoculate themselves from criticism by a constituent group by casting votes favorable to that group, after first determining that the measure in question has no chance of passing, with or without the politicians’ support.  According to a Washington Post columnist cited in both Denver Post articles, Udall and Bennet consulted with virulent anti-gun Senator Chuck Schumer, before casting their votes.  The Thune-Vitter measure failed, after gaining 58 of the 60 “supermajority” votes required to get a bill through the Senate.

In any case, Udall and Bennet will probably receive some credit for their votes from pro-gun rights organizations, such as the Firearms Coalition of Colorado, the NRA, GOA, The Citizens Committee…, and JPFO.  Organizations that do not support the right of American Citizens to armed self-defense from crime, tyranny, and genocide will be unhappy with the votes of the Colorado Senators.  Everybody who is politically sophisticated on both sides of the issue will understand the “inside baseball” aspect of this situation.

Udall and Bennet did vote for the amendment to a credit card bill that preserved the endangered “right” of citizens to concealed carry in national parks where state law permits carry in state parks.  That concealed carry amendment was a partial victory for supporters of individual liberty.  We’ll take incremental steps to restore the full Second Amendment rights of Americans where we can.  We will also remember the votes that support or retard the recovery of freedom.

Stay tuned for more drama from D.C.

Def Mech

The U.S. Forest Service has closed the Rampart Range Shooting Area near Colorado Springs following a negligent discharge of a handgun that resulted in the death of a person using the range.  Please contact the U.S. Forest Service Regional Office at 202-275-5350 or E-mail at http://www.fs.fed.us/r2/contact/ , before Friday, if possible, to request that the range be reopened with supervision to prevent a recurrence of this tragedy.  See related articles at Colorado Gun Issues, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/COGunissues/.

Just a reminder, the anti-gunners are going to bludgeon us with every single accidental shooting death.  The negligent discharge of a firearm not only threatens to kill or injure someone and ruin your life, it threatens the right to armed self-defense against crime, tyranny and genocide of every American Citizen.  If you follow four simple rules originated by Colonel Jeff Cooper, you will be a safe shooter.  These rules should be taught in every school in America, but don’t hold your breath.

Treat every gun as a loaded gun.

Never point the muzzle of a gun at anything you aren’t willing to destroy.

Keep your finger out of the trigger guard until your target is in your sights.

Be aware of what is behind your target.  What happens if you miss?

There is a Tanner Gun Show August 1st and 2nd at the Merchandise Mart at 58th Avenue and I-25, if you are in the Denver Metro Area.

Def Mech

The anti-gunners are up in arms, so to speak, over this.  We need a good turnout.

Def Mech