Remembering the lessons of history

April 29th, 1992, a day that started out like most other days in America. The one exception to this day would start in Los Angeles where a highly publicized trial was about to receive a verdict, and a whole nation watched with anticipation. That anticipation soon turned to disbelief and then horror as the city ignited in to rioting, looting, arson, and murder.

A man named Reginald Denny was violently yanked from his vehicle then severely beaten on the street by an angry mob of youths while news helicopters hovered overhead. I watched this entire vicious assault on an innocent man, live on television. I watched as these young thugs dropped a heavy cinderblock on Mr. Dennys head as he lay on the street unable to defend himself anymore. I remember thinking, hoping, and praying that the police would get there quickly and save this guys life. I’m sure that millions across the nation were hoping and praying for the same thing, that the police would rush to the rescue and save this man, who had done nothing, and get him to a hospital before he was killed.

Reginald Denny was finally rescued from several neighbors who, having seen this brutal attempted murder on the news, ran out in to the street, risking their own lives, to save the life of a stranger. We all had to be wondering ‘where were the police?’ The police, who are supposed to protect us not only hadn’t shown up, but they had been ordered out of the area, for their own safety.

Realizing that the police weren’t coming, the citizens of Los Angeles attempted to provide for their own protection by buying a gun. Imagine the shock and dismay when they were told that there was a 15 day waiting period. Now imagine the horror they felt when they realized that they would not be able to defend themselves adequately against a huge and violent mob of thousands. I’m told that an overwhelming amount of gun control advocates living in Los Angeles changed their minds that day. They no longer believed the lie they had been told, that the police are there to protect them.

50 to 60 people were killed during that week of lawlessness and violence, several small business’ and shops were burned to the ground, yet some shops survived, mostly intact, because those shopkeepers banded together with their own personal firearms and defended themselves and their property. They were forced to provide for their own defense because the police were more concerned about their own safety than that of the citizens who paid their salaries.

What kind of elected official tells his constituents that we don’t need guns to protect ourselves, that’s what the police are for, and then when things get too dangerous for the police, we are left to fend on our own? That kind of an elected official is one that does NOT have his constituents best interests at heart but is solely intent upon exercising his/her power to disarm the people in the city, to turn them in to victims.

The L.A. riots should stand out and remind every single one of us that we alone will end up being responsible for our own lives. The police cannot and should not be relied upon to ‘protect’ you. The United States Supreme Court has even ruled that the police are not liable, nor responsible to protect an individual, but only the public at large. It should remind us all that that is why we have the right to keep and bear arms and that we should no longer stand for anyone, especially our elected officials, to continue to legislate these rights away from us.

Stand up for your safety and protection. Stand up for your second amendment rights.

Mayor Bloomberg, stop shifting your responsibilities on us

At the end of the mayors gun violence summit, Mayor Bloomberg had this to say,

" And those who vote against getting guns off the street really are the ones as much responsible as the shooter, because if the shooter didn't have a gun, that child would still be alive."

Mayor Bloomberg, every single mayor, governor, and state legislator are just as much responsible for every single violent crime that occurs in their city, state, and/or district for violating the second amendment of the constitution and illegally disarming your constituent victims. How many of THOSE innocent victims, now dead at the hands of a murdering thug, would be alive today had YOU not made it impossible for them to defend their own lives?

Mayors Bloomberg, Daley, and Menino, How many deaths are you responsible for in your city because you don't allow guns in the hands of law abiding people to protect themselves? How many rapes are you complicit in because the victims were not allowed to own or carry a gun because of your gun control laws? How many of those crimes were committed by people who weren't following your laws and had a gun anyway?

Your victim disarmament policy is the height of irresponsibility by keeping your city and its citizens vulnerable to every criminally minded person, people who don't follow your anti gun laws to begin with.

You are just as much responsible for every violent crime committed in your city because you refuse to let your constituents defend themselves with a gun.

The 2nd amendment is an individual right

The anti 2nd amendment crowd uses a popular argument that the 'militia' referred to in the 2nd amendment is actually the national guard and not an individual right that exists for all american citizens, that the national guard handles security and protection of freedom for those in that particular state. If this were really the case and people had nothing to fear from their state 'militia, or national guard, then what happened on this 20th day of April in 1914 should give them all pause.

The Ludlow massacre was the death of about 20 people (mostly children) during an attack by the Colorado National Guard on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families, including women and children, at Ludlow, Colorado on April 20, 1914. This attack was the culmination of a day-long fight between strikers and the militia (national guard) in which 17 strikers or their family members, three Guardsmen and one bystander were killed.

The fighting raged for the entire day. The militia was reinforced by non-uniformed mine guards later in the afternoon. At dusk, a passing freight train stopped on the tracks in front of the Guards' machine gun placements, allowing many of the miners and their families to escape to an outcrop of hills to the east called the "Black Hills." By 7:00 pm, the camp was in flames, and the militia descended on it and began to search and loot the camp. Louis Tikas, the Ludlow camp's main organizer, had remained in the camp the entire day and was still there when the fire started. Tikas and two other men were captured by the militia. Tikas and Lt. Karl Linderfelt, commander of one of two Guard companies had confronted each other several times in the previous months. While 2 militiamen held Tikas, Linderfelt broke a rifle butt over his head. Tikas and the other two captured miners were later found shot dead. Their bodies lay along the Colorado and Southern tracks for three days in full view of passing trains. The militia officers refused to allow them to be moved until a local of a railway union demanded the bodies be taken away for burial.

During the battle, four women and eleven children had been hiding in a pit beneath one tent where they were trapped when the tent above them caught fire. Two of the women and all of the children suffocated. These deaths became a rallying cry for the UMWA, who called the incident the "Ludlow Massacre."

In addition to the fire victims, Louis Tikas and the other men shot dead, there were another half dozen strikers, three company guards, and one militiaman killed in that day's fighting.

When they got news of what happened at Ludlow, the other camps broke out into rioting. For the next seven days they destroyed mine property and attacked the towns and guards with killing on both sides. This conflict, called the Colorado Coalfield War, was the most violent labor conflict in US history, with the death toll ranging from 69, in the Colorado government report, to 199 in the investigation ordered by John D. Rockefeller Jr. Governor Ammons sent a plea to President Wilson, who dispatched federal troops to restore order. They disarmed both sides (displacing, and often arresting, the militia in the process) and reported directly to Washington.

The UMWA finally ran out of money, and called off the strike on December 10, 1914.

In the end, the strikers failed to obtain their demands, the union did not obtain recognition, and many striking workers were replaced by new workers. Over 400 strikers were arrested, 332 of whom were indicted for murder. Only one man, John Lawson, leader of the strike, was convicted for murder, and that verdict was eventually overturned by the Colorado Supreme Court. Twenty-two National Guardsmen, including 10 officers, were court-martialed. Only Lt. Linderfelt was found guilty of assault for his attack on Louis Tikas, but was given only a light reprimand.

The founding fathers had reasons why they specifically mentioned that the right to bear arms belongs to all freemen and that this right is NOT to be infringed upon. The Ludlow Massacre is a prime example of why the 2nd amendment must remain uninhibited and fiercely protected by all individual americans.

Gov Blago and 'common sense', say what?

There is an article in a rag called 'finalcall', written by Richard Muhammad where he continues to blather on about banning assault weapons while dancing in the blood of two dead little girls out of Englewood Illinois.

As a second mother prepared to bury a daughter hit by a stray bullet in the Englewood neighborhood, the mayor and governor repeated demands that assault weapons should be banned in the state.

Yeah, I forgot to add Blago's puppet master, Mayor Daley. He's the main one pulling the strings on this, but we already knew that. Last month, the mayor demanded that the 1.5 million down state illinoisans appear before him and explain to him why their weapons should not be banned. Well, some members of the Illinois coalition of responsible gun owners took mayor daley up on his demand, only to be turned away so apparently the mayor wasn't all that serious.

“It is difficult to explain, explicable to understand, how two young children going about their lives—one at a birthday party, the other about to go to school—in their homes, safe presumably, and then both be victims of gun violence,” said Governor Rod Blagojevich

Here is your first clue Governor, you are doing a lousy job of fighting crime and criminals. You've still got the inane notion that simply banning a tool will wipe out crime. Take a lesson from D.C. and your own chicago. Banning guns isn't working and neither is blaming 'lax' gun laws in Indiana.

It will be an uphill battle to pass a “common sense” law that would make assault weapons illegal, the governor complained. “These are weapons of mass destruction,” said Gov. Blagojevichwho blasted lawmakers that would “rather do the bidding of the gun lobby than protect neighborhoods like Englewood. No law-abiding citizen needs a semi-automatic assault weapon.”

Not only does it appear that Mayor Daley is delusional, but so is the governor. Making assault weapons (read that as 'scary looking') illegal is not going to stop crime in chicago nor does it even remotely sound like 'common sense'. An assault weapon is not a WMD, just ask President Bush. You say no law-abiding citizen needs a semi-automatic assault weapon but perhaps you've forgotten the Los Angelas riots and pictures of shop owners on top of their stores, defending their property from rioters and looters with assault weapons?

“There is no excuse, no excuse, for anyone to sell dope to any child in any community. There is no excuse for anyone to take a gun and point it at a child or at a home in any community,” said Mayor Richard Daley

I hate giving this guy any credit, but at least he got part of that right. There is no excuse, so long as that child isn't pointing a gun at you in the first place, which happens far too often in chicago. So what 'common sense' are you going to use to stop that one Mayor?

My guess is 'not much'. The Mayor and Governor are less interested in fighting the actual criminals than they are in making the people of Illinois defenseless little subjects. Time to make a change Illinois people, get rid of Mayor Daley and Governor Blagojevich....send them packing this election.