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Enterprise, Number 23, March 1, 1997.
And Brady Makes Three
By L. Neil Smith
Exclusive to The Libertarian Enterprise
Close your eyes and imagine it for a moment ...
The Ku Klux Klan in full regalia holds a press conference on the steps of the United States Supreme Court to announce that, on the third anniversary of its passage, an unconstitutional election law they rammed through Congress and down the country's throat, has so far prevented more than 100,000 Negroes from voting.
The National Grand Dragon (in this politically-correct Age of Entitlement, a grim, gaunt, middle-aged, inorgasmic, alcoholic-looking female) raises her hood to make the proclamation and the media faithfully pass the joyous tidings along to a public that, for decades, they have enthusiastically helped to keep in abysmal ignorance of the facts and the highest law of the land, the Bill of Rights.
As repulsive as such a spectacle would be, the actual situation is far worse. The gaggle of thugs on the steps of the Supreme Court this week were, in fact, America's extensive and well-bankrolled victim disarmament industry. What they were gloating over is the third anniversary of passage of the Brady Bill.
It is important in this connection, to remind ourselves continually that James and Sarah Brady still claim to be conservative Republicans. Throw in Rudolph "National Registration" Giuliani, Christine Todd "Semiauto Ban" Whitman, Kay Bailey "What Second Amendment?" Hutchison, and hundreds of their ilk, and you'll have a fair idea of how much the GOP can be counted on to repair this damage.
The 100,000 "preventees" being bragged about are people who attempted to exercise the unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right of every man, woman, and responsible child to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon (rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything) any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission -- and were illegally kept from doing so, not because they were axe-murderers, but due to a government computer error, or simply because they had an unpaid parking ticket on their record.
The only thing missing was a gigantic, burning European-style "forbidden" symbol.
The one bright spot is that the Brady 100,000, like every other statistic generated by these malignant gangsters, is a lie. It's the same 100,000 we hear about with regard to new cops put on the street by Bill Clinton (where we have equal reason to be grateful for the lie -- America needs more cops the way it needs another sexually- transmitted disease). In the computer industry, I believe the expression is "vaporware". Elsewhere, the term is more, well, bucolic.
Interestingly, a related anniversary went by almost unnoticed. Ten years ago, the Brady Bill was just another dimwitted experimentatal scheme knocking around Washington with thousands just like it ("Wages for Housework" comes to mind) until it came to the attention of elderly male senators and congressmen that women had begun to acquire handguns in unprecedented numbers, and where that was happening, the volume of violent crimes committed against them was plummeting.
Obviously, something had to be done about that, just as something had to be done a generation earlier about blacks acquiring handguns in unprecedented numbers.
The 1968 Gun Control Act and the Brady Bill were both passed for the same reason: to disarm and disenfranchise individuals -- blacks in the 60s; women in the 90s -- who, increasingly, were refusing to be manipulated by (or to be dependent for their physical security upon) an utterly failed Democratic power establishment.
Ironically, James Brady, lolling helpless in his wheelchair (wife Sarah's political marionette and poster boy for the victim disarmament industry) is living proof that you can be totally surrounded by the toughest, best-armed, most technologically-sophisticated coterie of bodyguards in the world -- those charged with defending the person of the President of the United States -- and still become a victim if you're unprepared -- and unequipped -- to defend yourself.
Which is precisely what the Brady Bill is intended to prevent.
Last year, Northwestern University published a study demonstrating that, in jurisdictions where the right to own and carry weapons has even minimally been restored to the civilian population, crimes rates are falling steeply. Of perhaps even greater interest is their estimate that permitting concealed carry in other jurisdictions would have prevented thousands of injuries and deaths.
It is those injuries and deaths, deliberately inflicted upon an innocent populace, that the "Brady Bunch", more directly culpable than anybody else in today's America, were celebrating last week on the steps of the Supreme Court. If they possessed the integrity of, say, the Ku Klux Klan, they would admit it.
Congratulations, Sarah, and drink up! You're one of a select number, the only creatures in this country who think that champagne and blood taste good together.Permission to redistribute this article is hereby granted by the author, provided it is reproduced unedited, in its entirety, and appropriate credit given.
L. Neil Smith's award-winning The Probability Broach opens a window onto a Libertarian civilization. More of his books (see The Webley Page: http://www.lneilsmith.org//) are available at bookstores everywhere, at http://www.amazon.com, at Laissez Faire Books, (800) 326-0996, or Frugal Muse Bookstore, (608) 833-8668. Neil will speak at the AZLP annual convention in Phoenix, 4/19/97.
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