Victory!

Colorado State Senator John Morse has conceded the recall election!  This is a victory for Representative Government.

While the media kept saying this recall was about the gun laws he pushed, it was more about the way he went about it.  He quashed dissent, refusing to allow pro 2nd Amendment citizens to testify against the laws during Senate debate.  He refused testimony from Colorado Sheriffs who opposed the bills.  He described phone calls and emails from citizens opposing the bills as "toxic."  He chose to represent New York Mayor Bloomberg and President Obama in the Colorado Senate instead of the people of Colorado. 

Not only that, but throughout the recall process, he used (or allowed others to use) every trick in the book, from lying robocalls to lawsuits to avoid facing the voters in a recall election.  An honest representative of the people would have welcomed a chance to take his case directly to the voters, but not a tyrant like John Morse.

John Morse was derelict in his duty to represent the voters in his own district, and now he has paid the price. 

The people of Colorado have spoken and on behalf of the citizens in your senate district, Mr. Morse, YOU'RE FIRED!

Mayor Bloomberg, let this be a lesson to you.  Keep your New York nose out of Colorado politics.  We don't want your liberal nanny state policies here in the West where we value liberty, self sufficiency and a government that keeps its nose out of our business and its hands off our God-given rights.

Gun Control for Everyone!

In my reading today, I stumbled across a great article in the Washington Times, entitled, "A Gun Control Compromise for Everyone" by Eric Golub. It is an excellent, ironic proposal for a compromise everyone, liberals and conservatives, can agree on. Liberals do not want guns, so fine, do not allow liberals to have them. Conservatives want guns, so allow them to have all of them. Everyone gets what they want. Check out the article. You'll be smiling by the end.

A True Hero

When the horrible shooting in Tuscon happened, an armed citizen, Joe Zamudio, was next door in Walgreens. Here is the story in his words:

Note that without special military or police training, he was able to rapidly assess the situation and took the appropriate action. Even though he was momentarily confused about who the real shooter was, he didn't shoot the wrong person; in fact, he didn't even draw. Mr. Zamudio is a true American hero. He proves that an average citizen, carrying a concealed weapon, can make the right decision and make a difference within precious seconds, even though the police are only minutes away.

Army Victim Disarmament Zone

I was shocked and saddened to hear about the brave men and women who lost their lives at the hand of the domestic Islamic terrorist Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan. The AP reported that if it had not been for many brave and selfless heroes, the bloodshed would have been much worse. One paragraph about one of the heroes caught my eye:

The 21-year-old Fort Worth native (Pfc. Marquest Smith) quickly grabbed the civilian worker who'd been helping with his paperwork and forced her under the desk. He lay low for several minutes, waiting for the shooter to run out of ammunition and wishing he, too, had a gun.

Why didn't this brave young man have a gun? He was unarmed because the DoD does not allow anyone without a specific reason to carry a weapon to be armed. All weapons (except personal weapons registered and kept in base housing) must be secured in the post armory. Usually, this means that only Military Police or civilian security forces (like the heroic Kimberly Munley, who shot and stopped the domestic Islamic terrorist) are armed on a base. I served 5 1/2 years in the Air Force, and the only time I was allowed to carry a gun was on the few occasions I was taking weapons training. You could bring a personal weapon on base to shoot at the firing range, but it had to be registered with the SPs, unloaded, locked and stored separately from ammunition, and you had to have a qualified range master on hand if you were using it.

So why did we have so many victims in a building full of highly trained, proficient, experienced warriors, with only a lone gunman with two handguns? They were not allowed to carry the tools to defend themselves. The shooting went on for four minutes after the 911 call was made. What difference would it have made if Pfc. Smith and his courageous compatriots had been carrying sidearms? How many seconds would the terrorist have lasted if they had weapons at the ready? Would the coward Hasan have even tried?

Update, 7 Nov 09:
Several commentators have picked up on this theme, including Gun Rights Examiners Daniel White, Howard Nemerov and Kurt Hoffman. They write with far deeper analysis than mine and arrive at the same conclusions.

Another quote, this time from cnsnews.com:

"I was confused and just shocked," said Spc. Jerry Richard, 27, who works at the center but was not on duty during the shooting. "Overseas you are ready for it. But here you can't even defend yourself."

Mr. Senator, Are You Paying Attention?

Senators Udall and Bennett,

What part of "no public option" are you senators having trouble understanding? Have you forgotten the message you received loud and clear during your recess town hall meetings?

The "public option" on the current Senate version of the health care bill that Senator Reid is pushing is the first step to a socialized medicine nightmare in this country. There are many areas where we can compromise on health care legislation, but the public option is completely unacceptable. No. No! NO! NO PUBLIC OPTION!

Sincerely,

Jeff Odegard
Colorado Springs, CO

Please Vote NO on Cass Sunstein

Senators Udall & Bennett,

As you know, Cass Sunstein has been nominated by President Obama to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. I vehemently oppose his nomination and hope that you will agree with me that he holds radical views that are out of step with common Colorado values.

In a 2007 speech at Harvard University, Professor Sunstein said that he wants to ban hunting, and he intends to do it by regulating it out of existence. He is also strongly supports increased gun control, and downplays the 2nd Amendment. Colorado citizens view the rights to bear arms and to hunt as sacred, and modern wildlife management (including hunting) has given us some of the healthiest wildlife populations in history. We need to enforce current gun regulations and remote those that clearly have no effect on violent crime, not create more.

In a 2007 speech at Harvard, he put animal suffering on the same moral scale as human genocide and slavery. On page 11 of "Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions" (2004), he made the bizarre statement that animals could bring lawsuits against people. This could have devastating effects on farming and ranching in Colorado. Grocery prices are high enough without new, insane government regulations giving Bessie the Milk Cow human rights.

In his 2008 book “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness” he says that he wants to change organ donation from opt-in to opt-out, which would make the very personal, private choice about organ donation almost no choice at all. Colorado values freedom and personal liberty.

Sincerely,

Jeff Odegard
Colorado Springs

Things that make me angry...

This from Telegraph.co.uk today:

"A businessman was held on suspicion of attempted murder after confronting a gang of youths who allegedly threatened to kill his wife and attacked his stepson outside their home.
Colin Philpott was roused from bed and, still barefoot, challenged the group as his stepson, Alex, was battered in the front garden of the family’s £500,000 property.
In the scuffle which followed, one of the youths, named locally as Josh Hasler, was stabbed a number of times and collapsed in the street. Police were called, leading to the arrest of Mr Philpott and five of the youths, aged 16."

A gang of at least 6 punks break into his house, attack his stepson, threaten to kill him and his wife, and he gets arrested for exercising his natural, God-given right to self-defense? According to the liberal nutjobs who run the country, I suppose he should have just rolled over and let them kill his family. Poor, misguided youths; they probably didn't know any better. They're the real victims here.

I hope the bobbies come to their senses, drop all charges and issue an apology, but that would assume a level of common sense that they just don't possess anymore in jolly old England.

Please Vote No on Climate Bill

Senators Udall and Bennet,

First, I would like to thank you for your recent vote supporting our right to keep and bear arms, documented in the 2nd Amendment.

Please vote no on the upcoming climate bill. I am a conservationist, outdoorsman, fisherman and hunter. I believe in doing all we can to preserve the environment for future generations. I believe we can accomplish this through responsible land use and common sense legislation. However, this bill is a financial nightmare waiting to happen. I'm concerned about increased taxes which will result in no real impact to the global climate or the environment - only increased taxes and increased government control.

Sincerely,

Jeff A. Odegard
Colorado Springs

Sent to both Senators this morning.

From the Mouths of Babes

An American Tragedy

While many celebrate tonight in Chicago's Hyde Park and around the country, some of us mourn. We mourn the coming loss of liberty. We mourn the coming loss of morality. We mourn the coming loss of prosperity.

Bitterly clinging to my guns and religion for four more years, until change for the better.

Happy Patriot's Day!

April 19th, 1775, Old North Bridge, Concord, Massachusetts. The shot heard around the world began this nation's fight for independence. This day is a powerful reminder of many important beliefs I have. The first, and most important to me, is "No king but King Jesus!"

John Ashcroft was roundly criticized for his "No King but Jesus" speech at Bob Jones University, but he was only reminding us of our colonial and Revolutionary War heritage. In a 1774 report to King George, the Governor of Boston noted: "If you ask an American, who is his master? He will tell you he has none, nor any governor but Jesus Christ." The pre-war Colonial Committees of Correspondence soon made this the American motto: "No King but King Jesus." And this sentiment was carried over into the 1783 peace treaty with Great Britain ending that war, which begins "In the name of the most Holy and Undivided Trinity... ." (Catholic Education Resource Center)

(Is the United States a Christian nation? - No. Just read the news and anyone can see that it is not. Was it founded by mostly Christians based on Christian principles? - Yes!)

The second belief enshrined in that first gunshot is that free men have the God-given right to own and carry arms for self-defense and the preservation of liberty. The minutemen were massing arms (including cannons), ammunition and supplies for war, and the British were on their way to confiscate them. Before you can subjugate a populace, you have to disarm them. Adolph Hitler understood it. Josef Stalin understood it. King George understood it, and learned the hard way what happens when tyrants encounter free men with liberty in their hearts and guns in their hands.

The third idea I find in the hearts of the patriots is that of liberty - the desire to live a life of freedom. This is not libertine freedom - the freedom to do whatever we want, regardless of what happens to others. Government is given by God to "bear the sword" (Rom 13:4) and punish evildoers, but not to be a source of fear for the law-abiding citizen. Our freedom is the freedom to do what is right, loving God and loving each other without fear of a tyrant telling us what we will do, what we will believe, or what we will think.

Happy Patriot's Day! Wouldn't it be great if it was a national holiday?

No king but King Jesus!

Basic Human Rights in the Baghdad Surge

I enjoy reading firsthand reports from Iraq, since it appears that the MSM only tells us the bad things that are happening in a few areas of the country. In the process, I found some interesting quotes from a reporter covering the surge in Baghdad, Michal J. Totten's Middle East Journal which is covered regularly on FoxNews.com had some interesting things to say about the right to keep and bear arms - in the middle of an insurgency:

Not everything they do is humanitarian work, unless you consider counter-terrorism humanitarian work. In my view, you should. Few Westerners think of personal security as a human right, but if you show up in Baghdad I’ll bet you will. Personal security may, in fact, be the most important human right. Without it the others mean little. People aren’t free if they have to hide in their homes from death squads and car bombs.

This goes contrary to everything gun control advocates would tell us. They assume that the authorities are capable of and responsible for protecting the rest of us 24/7. The simple truth is they are not capable (ask your local police department their average response times for your area), and not responsible (per the Supreme Court). If you want to be safe, you have to take responsibility for your own protection. Like the Iraqis, we aren't free if we have to hide behind locked doors and alarm systems and pray that the bad guys go find some other house to terrorize.

This responsibility, however, is not without risk. The 82nd Airborne squad leader questioned an old man who, a few nights earlier from his rooftop, had "locked and loaded" on the patrol, thinking they were insurgents.

“It’s okay,” said the lieutenant. “You don’t need to be sorry. You have the right to defend yourself and your home. Just be sure if you have to shoot someone that you know who you’re shooting at. Thank you for your help, and I am sorry for waking you up.”

Even in a war torn country like Iraq, possibly especially in a place like Iraq, self-defense is considered a basic human right. With our relatively safe lives in the West, we take that for granted. Some even consider it unnecessary, but our Second Amendment freedom continues to be the right that guarantees all others.