Pining for the Peaceful Paradise of an Omnipotent State

by Vin Suprynowicz
[email protected]

         On April 20, the evening after armed culprits invaded a Colorado high school with pipe bombs and firearms in what police described as an "apparent suicide mission," an urban animal-rights activist, apparently having seen my defenses of the Second Amendment, sent me the following e-mail:
         "I bet you must be very proud of those two militant freaks that murdered their fellow student and then took their own worthless lives. Hopefully you will be the next random victim of some loose cannon with an assault weapon.
         "May God have mercy on your misguided soul."

         I replied:

#   #   #

         Greetings, whoever you are --
         In Israel, teachers and parents who serve as school aides go armed at all times on school grounds, with semi-automatic weapons. Since this policy was put into effect, terrorist attacks in Israeli schools have dropped to zero. The only recent exception was the tragic case of a group of schoolchildren who were murdered by an Arab gunman as they visited the "Zone of Peace" on the Jordanian border. The Jordanians specifically requested that the Israeli teachers and chaperones leave their weapons behind ... which they did.
         American schools are, on the other hand, "gun free zones" by order of our chief cowards and socialist bed-wetters, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Charles Schumer and Diane Feinstein. Therefore, our schools make ideal targets for misguided gunmen, who already violate dozens of laws when they undertake such actions -- demonstrating that no number of victim disarmament laws will ever stop such creatures. (Washington, D.C. should be a peaceful paradise if "gun control" laws work. But instead that city has one of our highest murder rates -- isn't that curious?)
         I, too, hope the next time some nut takes it into his head to shoot an innocent child, he encounters me first. One of two things will then happen: 1) I will die, instead of an innocent child. Good trade; or 2) Being well-armed and trained in the use of the weapons which our Founding Fathers considered it our right and duty to own and carry (in order to protect their legacy of freedom against inevitable creeping tyranny) I will kill the outlaw. An even better trade.
         If someone attacks a helpless child while you're nearby, will you have the weapon and the training to stop them? (You'll dial 9-1-1, won't you? Average waiting time in Los Angeles today after dialing 9-1-1 is 20 minutes.) If the attack occurs in a school, will the nearby adults be helpless to save that child's life, due to victim disarmament laws you've supported?
         In either case, are you sure God will have mercy on your soul, after you have knowingly betrayed our heritage of freedom, condemning the innocent to die without defense?
         Unlike you, I do not hope you die because of your misguided faith in an armed, omnipotent state -- the same foolhardy faith that led many well-meaning Jews, Slavs, and Gypsies to stand by and watch their children gassed to death in Europe in the 1940s because they had foolishly "obeyed the law" and turned in their weapons, leaving only the army and the police with arms, while decent men had no recourse but to pray "that the Americans come with their Garand rifles in time to save us."
         Quite to the contrary, as a member of the unorganized militia (as are all adult, able-bodied Americans), I would still use my weapons to defend your rights, your property, and the safety of your family, even after you have condemned me, vilified me, and voted to strip me of my God-given right to self-defense.
         This does not make me a great man. It merely makes me a man.
         What your opposite stance makes you, I'm not sure. Do I take it you oppose the existence or use of all firearms? Do you then believe our fathers, uncles, and grandfathers were wrong to hit those beaches in Normandy and Iwo Jima (yes, the names of some of my relatives are on the granite memorials), carrying these bullet-spewing machines which you hate? You would have preferred to leave things as they were in 1943, with millions condemned to fascist slavery?
         And what about today in Littleton, Colorado? Would you have condemned the police to enter that building without firearms? Or do you actually believe that firearms are fine, so long as they're only in the possession of government agents ... as was the case under Stalin in 1931, under Hitler in 1942, under Mao in 1955, under Pol Pot in 1971? My, you must be very proud of those "militant freaks" who put your doctrines into effect, murdering 10 million in the Ukraine, 8 million in Germany and the Nazi empire, more millions in China, and (the piker!) a mere few hundred thousand in Cambodia.
         Continue on your present course. You seem to be in the majority. So, with luck, you may yet survive -- at least briefly -- to live under just such a regime, yourself.

Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. His new book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at $21.95 plus $3 shipping ($6 UPS; $2 shipping each additional copy) through Mountain Media, P.O. Box 4422, Las Vegas, Nev. 89127-4422. The 500-page trade paperback may also be ordered via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html, or at 1-800-244-2224. Credit cards accepted; volume discounts available.

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Dear Vin:

         Thank you for taking the time to get the subject column out on the evening of this tragic occurrence. I have two sons in elementary school, and the local news here in Memphis just ran a story about how our city and county schools are "prepared" for similar emergencies. You see, they have this handbook with a blue cover that apparently magically deflects all incoming munitions while the administrators go down the checklist covering such items as calling 911, what to not say to the media, the location of emergency exits, etc. It's very comforting to know I'm sending my sons to such a safe and well-prepared indoctrination facility each day.
         I'm an engineering professor at a local university and I'll have your column at the ready tomorrow. I, unfortunately, don't have your talent for stating my position so eloquently. Since I take the defense of me and mine very seriously, I'll be the obvious target for the sheeples' comments similar to that referenced in you column. Do you mind if I make copies of your column, in its entirety, to pass out to the drones? :-)
         Thanks again for your efforts,

         Mark

         Mark A. Driver, Ph.D.
         Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
         Christian Brothers University
         Memphis TN

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Hi, Mark --

         Please do. I don't mind taking the blame at all -- some truths just need to be said.

Best Wishes,

-- V.S.

Vin Suprynowicz [email protected]

The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it.
--John Hay, 1872

The most difficult struggle of all is the one within ourselves. Let us not get accustomed and adjusted to these conditions. The one who adjusts ceases to discriminate between good and evil. He becomes a slave in body and soul. Whatever may happen to you, remember always: Don't adjust! Revolt against the reality!

-- Mordechai Anielewicz, Warsaw, 1943

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From the AP:

In an interview with Asahi, Mieko Hattori, the mother of a 16-year-old Japanese exchange student in the United States who was fatally shot in 1992 while looking for a Halloween party, said she hoped the latest shootings would lead to tighter gun control laws.

"Guns are still everywhere. Even a high school student can get them," she was quoted as saying.

No, Mieko-san, only the kids who seek to do ill seem to have 'gotten them'. It's too bad none of the good guys had them in Littleton, n�? But then someone might have stopped the carnage early on and you'd have nothing to bleat about. -- Ed.

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