Friday, August 08, 2008

Mike Vanderboegh Responds to the Bradys

And, as usual, he slams it out of the park. Some choice excerpts...

If a man is known by his enemies as much as his friends, then I am richer today than I was last week. The anti-liberty, anti-firearm Brady Bunch, it seems, has noticed my little letter to the Capitol Times of Madison, Wisconsin -- where even the trees lean hard to the left. It is, they say, an example of "bunker paranoia," describing it as a "crackpot's rant," "morally degenerate," "hyperbole from a possibly unstable individual," and my favorite, "immoral or . . . street-corner gibberish uttered by one who wears a tinfoil hat."...I wondered briefly if they had been talking to my ex-wife, the equally liberal public employee and Democrat Wicked Witch of the North, who resides in Columbus, Ohio, and who is every now and then reportedly spotted on her broom flying in the airspace over the beer plant on I-270 north of town...

...They certainly do not envision themselves enforcing the tyrannical laws they propose. And that is the beauty of collectivism. It is power without personal consequences to the ruling elite...

RTWT, as they say. I love the smell of roasted anti-gunner in the morning, indeed...
I'd like to bring to the front some good commentary in a previous post, by Linoge:
The problem is that the war we are waging now is one of public opinion, intrigue, and appearance, not beating off a superior military force from our shores. Different tactics, I do believe, apply.

I responded thusly:
I tend to agree with that, but still I think the question deserves to be asked early and often — What kinds of consequences would be in store for those who refused to comply with the registration and licensing laws? My money says they would involve other men with guns, saying "register and license or else," and we all know what that "or else" entails. And then what? While a part of me does think Mike Vanderboegh jumped the gun, so to speak, another part of me thinks he was exactly right on target, that it's better to fight the "reasonable restrictions/laws" dragon in its crib with harsh words now than with hot lead later when it's a raging, fearsome monster. I will freely admit, though, that there would be much utility in intermediate tactics such as civil disobedience, especially the kind that Mr. Vanderboegh himself wrote about in "The Window War." (I especially loved the line from Chris Matthews that Vanderboegh snuck in there: "These are all gun-owners breaking the law. I suppose we should be grateful they're using rocks.")
What I am keeping an eye on, though, is how long it'll take the Bradys to see Vanderboegh's response. I know they read some of the bigger gun blogs; they even linked to them in their last feverish ranting on Vanderboegh. Maybe we'll get lucky and the blogs will bring that response to their attention. It'll be interesting to see what they say.