1/22/10 PUTTIN' ON THE HAT AT LAST

ANOTHER COLORFUL DAWN
THE RIGHT TO DEFEND WHAT IS YOURS
THE HAT
THE WINDOW STICKER

Friday, 8:00 AM. 27 degrees, wind W, calm. The channel is mostly frozen over, the sky overcast and the barometer predicts snow. The ferry is breaking ice again this morning, the effort echoing up the hillsides. The official word is that the last day of operation will be this coming Tuesday, and then the wind sleds will take over. The end of January is about average for the cessation of ferry operations, last year’s early freeze up being something of an anomaly.
Well, I finally did it. Better late than never. Joined the NRA (National Rifle Association). I have put the sticker on the truck window and the hat on my head. I have owned guns off and on since I was sixteen years old. Bought, sold and traded them. Pistols, rifles, shotguns. Went years without owning them, never thought much about it one way or the other. So, why join a gun rights organization now? A couple of simple reasons.
A few years ago I went to a big box store to buy a single shot 20 gage shotgun for grouse hunting. Now this is a mere pop gun, not much good for anything else and not able to be easily concealed. It took three hours and pages of red tape to make this simple purchase and I thought, what the hell is going on here, why is the government impeding this simple sale, and I a veritable model citizen? Why must I have my background investigated as though I were a criminal, foreign terrorist or a psycho? Well, I forgot about that first overt assault on my constitutional rights.
But, the last few election cycles, with innuendos regarding folks like myself “clinging to guns and religion,” and constant politically correct tisk-tisking about the depravity, violence and sheer stupidity of the common man, have led me to believe that there is a real, left wing, elitist-led assault on our Second Amendment rights. I don’t want to own a grenade launcher or an M1 tank, but I believe strongly that I have the right to defend my home, family, and in the final analysis my liberty, with deadly force if necessary. The first things to be confiscated in a totalitarian society are the guns of the people. And the most salient defense against the dictator is the common citizen, armed. Of course it is not usually the state that first directly infringes on these rights, but the fringe groups that support it; the brown shirts, the thugs, the "party." Once the goons have intimidated them, the people are easy pickings for the machinery of the state. That's when the gun records are looked up, and the firearms confiscated one at a time, with a knock on the door in the wee hours of the morning. Then, when the people are disarmed, comes the midnight "putsch," the takeover of the government and the final death of freedom.
So, I joined the best organization I know of to help protect my right to keep and bear arms. There are a lot of folks in town who are not going to like the window sticker or the hat, but on the other hand there are quite a few, maybe the usually silent majority, who are going to give me a thumbs up, and wonder what took me so long. Remember, the Second Amendment guarantees the other Nine.