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For Pop and Leo
The following letter was in reply to WebMD's
“Safe
Gun Storage Saves Kids' Lives,” which stated that child and teenage suicides
were more common in homes with guns and that accidental shootings might be
as well, but that safe gun storage would reduce both accidental shootings
and suicides.
March 14, 2005
A Reply By:
Lawrence J. Braico
Regional Vice President
The Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol
Clubs, Inc.
(The Official NRA State Association,
Chartered 1934)
"If you've got a gun, and you've got a kid,
you've got a problem." So opens the February 8th article from "WebMD
Medical News", with references from a "study"(?) led by Doctor David C.
Grossman, and published in JAMA (The Journal of the American Medical
Association).
No one I know, including me, has any problem
with storing a firearm in a safe manner. We have a problem with being
'told' in what 'safe' manner to store them in our own homes, - under
penalty of the law.
Bearing the legislative lessons of the recent
past in mind, astute gun owners view such shenanigans as the precursors to
yet another cloaked-in-law devious trap laid in a field already clutered
with snares 'purposely' made to catch the wrong targets, i.e. lawful
owners of firearms,- any kind of firearms, from 'anyone' who is not a
police officer, government agent, or active soldier. We have a problem
with the loss of yet another part of civilian firearms ownership (i.e.
storage) to law enforcement authorities who are already thwrarted from
their original honorable missions by being pressed into a service
representing less and less the body "The People", - and more and more the
nation wrecking, personal prejudices of lawful gun ownership's enemies.
These are the same authorities whose blood-and-guts human components are
rountinely sold down the political river by their own politically
appointed upper echelon; - most notably in our largest, graft-rich cities.
Remember the Clinton Crime Bill with its staged photo-ops with coerced
'prop-cops? - then remember the Clinton pardons.This whole process is
brought centerstage by segments of a dime-novel,
frothing-at-the-mouth, complaisant media,- and the in concert, oath
defying politicians whose main purpose in life is being re-elected. When
successful, the result is defiant to liberty's best interests;- not the
least being her Second Amendment, - the bane of tyrants. When on this
planet we live, America does cease to live, so will liberty cease to live.
Obviously many people think that is a good idea. I do not; and neither do
the overwhelming majority of gun owners I know, who do or do not, belong
to any of the nations gun rights organizations.
Point;- the unpopularity of gun locks among
people who actually own guns. Just try giving them away at an outdoor show
for example as I have. The response is not what one would expect for a
give-away, - most people decline. Quality safes, although the way to
go, are expensive and cumbersome and therefore not an option to many
households. Ask a gun store sales person what the degree of sales is in
gun locks, the answer is: "next to nothing". Gun locks are jusifiably and
widely viewed as the equivalent of tying anchors to life jackets. Common
sheet-metal snips, available at any hardwear counter, easily defeat
the cable locks provided, by law, (i.e. jammed down our throats) with
every new handgun sold. That law, as all the rest of these 'laws' are made
to harass gun ownership rather than effect safety. I'm sure these creeps
took special glee when they made it 'law' to mar fine, artistically
crafted firearms by stamping on their barrels unsightly "safety" warnings
to read the instruction manual before using; - along with a lot of other
asinine dictatorial taints. I'm sure because I've seen it in the giddy,
child like behavior of NY Senator Charles Schumer, or Connecticut's Teddy
Kennedy, or Barbara Boxer of California, - Democrats all , - after they've
won a victory against the Second Amendment. You would think that they and
their party would have learned a lesson on November 2, 2004, but
nooo, not these 'Extremists'. 'Safety' ? No-no-no-no-no, - It's about
'power'. Who owns the weaponry has always been about power, - and trust.
Do you trust multi-millionaire retread Senator Frank Lautenberg?, or "I've
got 65 million dollars and I don't know what to do with the rest of my
life", - Senator Jon Corzine? I don't. Why should I? They don't trust me.
But then why should they?, I champion the written word of that document of
"The Law" intended to keep them in their rightful, lawful place. These
'holier-than-thou' "Honorable" elitists shrink from the Constitution
like Dracula from the cross; just as the Founding Fathers envisioned.
Nostrodemus had nothing on those old boys when it came to peering into the
future.
Aside from the aforementioned reasons, the big
problem with the good doctors' approach to 'safety' is that the "locking
up" of guns fosters a climate of ignorance, distrust, and most dangerous,
"taboo". Over and above all other methods of approaching safe firearms
storage is the human mind. If we achieve safe firearms storage, in the
human mind, then we achieve the ultimate mode of safe firearms
storage. But "safe firearms storage" is not enough for "firearms
prohibitionists."
To we who exercise this most telling of
American freedoms, it is viewed as an unequaled and eagerly anticipated
opportunity to pass on to the next generation their Constitutional, as
well as their human right to be armed. We revere this right of the
individual as essential not just to hunting and shooting, but in order to
effect self protection against unprovoked, life threatening attack. The
ultimate seriousness of firearms ownership and use envelopes an arena
of instructional opportunity not found anywhere else; - not on any
rink, field, or campus. Not even hunting's sister companion fishing can
compare because the catch can sometimes be sucessfully thrown back.
The realm of the gun is, at its core, the realm of life and death, of
triumph or defeat, of responsibility, or of abdication of
responsibility. In the critically acclaimed 1978 cinematic
masterpiece "The Deer Hunter" there is a scene where 'Mike', played by
Robert DeNiro, holds up a rifle cartridge to his not so serious hunting
buddies, and says: "....You see this? This is this.This ain't something
else.This is this!" It was not a very articulate statement, yet it was
of profound magnitude to span the ages, -if, one has the ears to hear it.
To anyone else it is either a mystery, or simply, - wrongly interpeted.
But to tens of millions of responsible Americans, "This" is no
mystery. "The Deer Hunter" received nine Academy Award nominations and
five Oscars, including Best Picture.
I suppose that the great truth of this
responsibility is one aspect of why we fight so hard for what we are so
familiar with, and easy around, - all to our own great sense of
achievement and ever-present, because required, respect. The appropriate
rules for the appropriate settings simply "must" be followed; and they
are just as simple and easy to follow as wearing your underwear "inside"
your pants. They are, foremost among others, - "...Keep that muzzle
pointed downrange", - "Keep that action open", (when not in a firing
mode), - "Be mindfull of what lies beyond your target", - "Treat every gun
as if it were loaded", "Never rely on the safety", - "Keep your finger off
the trigger until you're ready to shoot",- and The "Big" One:
-"Never, "Never", Not Even For The Briefiest Fraction Of a Second,
Ever Allow Your Gun To Point At Anything "YOU" Aren't to Ready and Willing
To Kill or Destroy." The fact that the responsibility of enforcing these
rules lie with all the people involved results in them rountenly being
adhered to, and not relegated to a lesser status; - of course we are
talking about legal activities here and not wayward criminal heartbreakers
indiscriminately firing fine handguns held in a clown-like manner of
sideways or upside down. It is hardly surprising that the shooting sports
are so absolutely low in injuries as to be almost statistically
non-existant;- a fact completely disregarded by the opponents of the mere
existence of firearms; - except for themselves of course.
In my Father's house (circa 1955) you could
add,: "Ya don't pull 'no' triggers"(dry fire), and "No loading the gun in
the house." At the instant of any infraction of the rules of safety,
was the certainty of a humiliating downgrading. God bless his soul,
'Pop' was "the law". He knew how long five days of school was to a kid
thinking of another gun toting adventure in the upcoming weekend's woods,
fields, or marsh, and how the threat of missing it was worse than any
corporal punishment the meanist disaplinarian could conjure up; -or so it
seemed. It was also from him that I gained my distain for "gun-control"
and those self-serving, anti-gun, Loretta Weinberg (D-NJ, Dist.37) type,
Socialist busy-bodies who would tell him/us different about "his" law, in
his/our house/home. Being Christians, we didn't need any other coercion to
act civilly from any other force from outside our door, - being Americans,
we held a healthy resentment of that intrusion, - that force. Therein did
lie all the difference in the "free world" to us;- a free world which we
were assured, by our mostly unfettered ownership of our firearms, was our
unparalled good fortune to be born into and still live in; - America;-
America; - sweet sweet America! It was a time when gun racks were parts of
living rooms and juvenile rifle teams were commonly taught by big
city police departments; - a time when going to bed at night without
locking your door was not so unusual, even though we lived only across the
Hudson River from Manhattan, in West New York, New Jersey. It was also a
time when 'just the thought' that the theft of ones guns, from ones own
home, could be construed as the fault of the victim, to the point of
criminal prosecution, would have been considered madness. Today,
unfortunatly, it is a common political platform and badge of honor; for
some.
It was at our dinner table, while talking
about hunting and guns that I first heard about a thing called "The
Constitution". As soon as I had been trusted enough to shoot a "real" gun,
a .22 rifle, at age seven, I stopped playing Cops and Robbers, and Cowboys
and Indians. Somehow I just couldn't point a toy gun at a friend and say
"bang-bang, you're dead" anymore. Opponents of legal firearms ownership
often point to, -''The culture of guns"- and how the acquisition of a
firearm by child from parent is "seen as a right of passage"; - well it
is, - but what do they know about it? Do they know the feeling I
experienced as a seven year old looking 'down' at who were only
yesterday my "playmates" because the night before I was shown a discipline
that there simply was no going back from? Can they at all appreciate the
positive reinforsement of the young human character this event fostered? I
don't see how. There were many more firsts to come, involving good people,
great dogs, spectacular landscapes, soul-revealing encounters, and guns, -
always guns. To this Rebecca Peters, aka Sarah Brady on an international
scale, says, quote:".... Get another hobby." To her and all her like I
say: "I Don't Think So!" Poor Rebecca, she can't tell the difference
between a hobby and a right; - between playing rugby and writing a piece
like this without fear of gulag. However, even that right, (The First
Amendment) is under attack by the gun-control crowd. The John McCain /
Russ Feingold Amendment, (now law which withstood a Supreme Court
challenge), is a gag order on political discussion by entities not
officially deemed "news organizations." It moves toward the creation of a
"Ministry of Propaganda". Truly, the phrase "First Gun Control, Then Total
Control" is truth condensed.
We kept our guns in an old gutted glass china
cabinet Pop confiscated over my poor mother's protests. It had a lock on
it, but for as long as I could remember it was never functional. The rule
was simple, I could bring my friends to the cabinet to look through the
glass to see the guns, but never open it. It stayed that way until I was
fourteen because Pop said that's how old "The Law" said I had to be before
I could be licensed to hunt by myself; - and if, by that fact, I could
'lawfully' be Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, or Seargent York, without adult
supervision, well then, the young 'man' had arrived! The trust therein
embodied would be a lifetime standard to be guarded with jealous pride.
I am convinced that if one acknowledges and
follows the rules of safe gun ownership for the seriousness they imply to
the subject they encompass, the chances you won't ever,"ever", have a
tragic gun accident are as excellent as anything planned for could hope to
be. Turn your face from them, or worse because you've been shielded(?)
from them, never learn them at all, - and ''then'' have a firearms
encounter/situation develop, "then", "possibly", as the do-good Doctor
Nazario warns , "...You've got a problem." A gun related "problem" simply
does not materialize because: "...If you've got a gun, and you got a kid,
you've got a problem." Kid + Gun = Problem, Not! I hope, for the sake of
his patients, the good doctor stays with medicine; - he is no
mathematician. When these Johnny-come-latelys of 'gun-safety' talk about
the subject, they come off sounding like adolescent adults who are
convinced that they've just discovered sex on behalf of all mankind.
My state affiliate of The NRA, The Association
of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, Inc., has been actively seeking that
segment of the population who want to be instructed in the safe excercise
of their Second Amendment rights, but don't know where to turn. Our ranks
of NRA Certified volunteer instructors now total well over 100 men and
women who are ready willing and able to give their time and expertise to
instruct people 'of all ages', (10 yrs. & up), in the safe enjoyment of
the shooting sports. We 'do' something to effect the goal of firearms
safety and profiency,- we 'instruct'. We 'teach'. We light candles. While
the enemies of the Second Amendment incesently curse the dark in order to
effect their publicly proclaimed ultimate goal of firearms prohibition. It
is a strategy which endorses and fosters firearms ignorance,- resulting in
misuse, fear, and accidents.Then they have the gall turn around and blame
us; - I DON'T THINK S-O-O-O-O-O!
Certainly there is "good" in this activity of
ours, - all of 'ours' as Americans, - that is worthy of being passed on.
Certainly there is necessity in this activity of ours that is primary in
its function and kinship to freedom and liberty continued. Though this
truth may not be starkly apparent on the Sunday afternoon firing line or
trap or skeet field, it, - i.e. the sweet smell of "Freedom Confirmed",
- still yet waifs in the air. Certainly this great truth is absent in the
presentations of the Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnel, and Charles Schumer
and Jon Corzine detractors of such aspects of the issue.
I say "issue" because I find the word "debate"
inappropriate, as there should be no "debate" as to the continuence of our
home, America, as the pinnacle of worldly freedom as embodied in the
individual and his unalienable rights; - the absolute refuge of freedom
confirmed by its one-person-one-vote, armed populance status, standing and
working, thriving, and sometimes dying, side by side, day to day, since
1776 as freedom's torch. All this achieved in a world heretofore devoid of
such an avalanche of advances by humanity, for all humanity, even though
existent with human societies for over ten-thousand years prior. This is
what the many times terrible sacrifices of our veterans, past and
present, as well as all preceding generations of the human family as a
whole, must be recognized for, and counted as, - with little room for
"debate" because JAMA and Rosie, and Jon Corzine, and Frank
Lautenberg, would equate poor governmental management of armed sociophats
with legal ownership of whatever type of firearm Constitutionally owned
and used,- no matter what kind of mechanism is employed to load the
whatever number, or caliber, of next round.
So, Mr. DeNoon and Dr.s' Nazario and Grossman,
and all your supporters, if "you" want to "lock up 'your' safety", - as
firearms ignorant, anti-gun extremist, and hypocritical
concealed-carry-pistol-permit-holder California Democratic Senator Diane
Fienstein coined it, - well knock yourselves out. If you choose not to own
firearms, that's fine too. Just leave us alone! Because you see, your
motives are not fooling anyone but the ungrateful and ignorant harbingers
of their own freedoms' demise; - you camouflaged John Kerry goose hunters.
Epilogue: My aforementioned home town of West
New York, New Jersey, is in Hudson County. The County Seat is Jersey City.
The corrupt Mayor of Jersey City for thirty years, from 1917 to 1947, was
Frank "I Am The Law" Hague. He was beloved by many of the poor wretches of
his "Horseshoe District" for doling out bags of coal in the harsh New
Jersey winters from city firehouses, - while he wore fur collar and cuff
cashmere coats, and tailor made three piece suits, and his Swiss bank
accounts swelled. His power was such that Franklin D.Roosevelt courted his
support in his presidential bids. He gained infamy when he deemed himself
"The Law" when reminded that the real law stood in his way. He was turned
out of office largely by World War II veterans returning from the horrors
of their victory in the name of Liberty over European and Asian thugs.
They were young men who had sacrificed plenty and were not about to put up
with tyrannical rule in their own "Home Town, USA." Unfortunately he was
replaced with a hack. Frank Hague's legacy of political machine supremacy
haunts Hudson County and New Jersey politics to this day.
In a speech before The Jersey City Chamber of
Commerce, on January 12, 1938, he said: "....We hear about
Constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear
those words I say to myself, "That man is a Red, That man is a communist."
You never heard a real American talk in that manner."
I dedicate this piece to Leo Gatoni Sr.;- US
Marine, decorated veteran of the Pacific Theater of War WWII, family
man, former Mayor of North Bergen, Life Member of The NRA, gentleman, and,
.....the Hudson County Sheriff's Officer, and "real American", who served
Frank "The Law" Hague his subpoena papers; - and, most notably, in the
rememberances of this once young man, .....member of our/my neighborhood
hunting club.
Lawrence J. Braico
Regional Vice President
The Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol
Clubs, Inc.
(The Official NRA State Association)
Opinions and Editorials
The letters and articles in this
section reflect the opinions of individual Association members and are
not intended to represent official ANJRPC policy.
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