The Issues That Matter
Gun Rights
I was startled, in 2006, to see that the incumbent only received a C from the National Rifle Association. In Idaho? And in our district? That's generally the sign of someone who has only a tepid level of support for the rights of gun owners.
I've been an activist defending the rights of gun owners since 1982. I have written a number of books, several about the history of weapons regulation, articles for popular magazines and scholarly journals. I provided historical research for important Supreme Court cases, such as this amicus brief for D.C. v. Heller (2008).
Here's a picture of me in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on March 18, 2008, with (from left to right) me, gun laws publisher Alan Korwin, Professor Bob Cottrol of George Washington University School of Law, Dave Hardy, Arizona gun rights attorney and film producer, and Professor Joe Olson of Hamline University School of Law.
And you will find my published work in a few other court cases as well, such as Mosby v. Devine (R.I. 2004) and USA v. Emerson, 46 F.Supp.2d 589 (N.D. Tex. 1999).
For many Idahoans, the need for a gun rights activist in the state legislature might not be obvious. Idaho is fortunate to have a very strong guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms in our state constitution. We are also fortunate that the Idaho Supreme Court has spoken clearly about this matter--unlike some other states. But make no mistake about it: there are people in Idaho who, if they had their way, would restrict gun ownership so heavily that many law-abiding adults would find it difficult to own a gun.
At the national level, we must be continually vigilant. There are well-intentioned but uninformed gun control activists who believe that handguns are too dangerous for anyone but the government to own. There are those who believe that gun ownership is only about hunting and sport--and that self-defense is not a sufficient reason to own a gun. There is also a much smaller, but zealous and influential faction that believes that self-defense is fundamentally evil, and that the government should enjoy a monopoly on the use of deadly force. (When I lived in California, I was represented in Congress by such a person.)
Right now, gun control is not a hot topic, even nationally. Gun control laws passed by Congress in the early 1990s caused the Democrats to lose control of the House of Representatives--or so Bill Clinton said in 1995. But if that question comes up again, it is important that state legislatures be fully loaded with those who can and will articulately defend the right to keep and bear arms.
When I was growing up, I used to get my ice cream cones from a woman with a tattoo. It wasn't pretty or fashionable; it was just a letter and some numbers. Like a valuable piece of machinery, she had a serial number. She was fortunate that her value as a piece of machinery exceeded her "scrap value," or she would have been gassed and "parted out" for her hair, clothes, and dental work, like millions of others.
The Holocaust, unfortunately, was not unique. In the twentieth century, more than 56 million people were killed by their own governments, because of their ethnicity, their race, their religion, their political beliefs--and sometimes for no reason at all. Restrictive gun control laws, while not the only cause of these genocidal actions, certainly made it much easier. On a smaller scale, lynching and oppression of the freed slaves was made possible at least in part by post-Civil War gun control laws that greatly simplified the terrorizing of blacks into submission.
Never again! There are certainly risks that Idaho's relatively loose gun control laws cause us--but those are nothing compared to the risks of government out of control. Tyrants prefer unarmed peasants.