Old: NRA Says Honest Americans Would Turn in Banned Guns

[Pred@tor]

I am sure I will get reamed for this but I thought I should bring it up because a long time ago when this terrible law was made the NRA said....



NRA Says Honest Americans Would Turn in Banned Guns

by Angel Shamaya

"Bill did what any honest, law-abiding American would do...he turned in his SKS Sporter [a militia rifle] to the police."

—NRA video entitled "It Can't Happen Here"
11:45 into video
NRALive.com
(Watch It.)

April 4, 2002

NRA Attorney Chuck Michel helping turn in a banned gun.
NRA Attorney Chuck Michel providing escort service for the surrender of Mr. Bill Doss' perfectly good militia rifle on January 21, 1998. Second Amendment Foundation gave Michel the "Madison Award" for his work in California, specifically citing the Doss case in the announcement of the award.



KeepAndBearArms.com — The National Rifle Association created a video to educate people about gross civil and human rights violations taking place in the state of California. The video, found at NRALive.com, is entitled "It Can't Happen Here." That video is found here: http://idirector.media.ibeam.com/real/nralive/hestontv/california.ram, and as of April 4, 2002, it's being promoted on the home page of NRALive.com. The video was also broadcast all over California at tremendous expense.

In "It Can't Happen Here," NRA expertly reveals the unscrupulous, capricious and unAmerican gun prohibition taking place in California. It's enough to make a sane gun owner's blood boil. One section of the video, however, tells us that "any honest...American would do" what Bill Doss did, and that Bill Doss "turned in his SKS Sporter to the police." A transcript of the section of the video recounting Mr. Doss' story is found below.

JUXTAPOSITION

NRA President Charleton Heston, on the other hand, stood before the media and thousands of members holding a musket and declaring "From My Cold Dead Hands!" His strong words brought thunderous applause from the record-attendance crowd — but few people think anyone will beat down Mr. Heston's door to confiscate his antique firearm, many suggest he should have been holding at least an AR-15, and the confused message sent to NRA members and gunowners at large is stark.

On one hand, we are told that if we are honest, we'll turn our guns in, and on the other hand we're left with a fighting message. Which is it? Which is the NRA's real position? Do we be "honest" and turn 'em in, or do we stand and fight like America's Founders did?




"So as we set out this year to defeat the divisive forces that would take freedom away, I want to say those words again for everyone within the sound of my voice to hear and to heed, and especially for you, Mr. Gore: From my cold dead hands!"

—NRA President Charleton Heston
129th Annual NRA Meeting, May 20 2001
(source)



ANALYSIS

NRA management telling you that an honest gunowner would turn in his militia rifle to a dishonest and unjust government defies the truth as espoused by America's founding fathers: the right of the people — people like Bill Doss — to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Why is the NRA suggesting that defying evil laws is dishonest?

The largest gun-rights organization in America telling American gun owners that if they are "honest" they "would" "turn in [their guns] to the police" is worse than if Martin Luther King had told black people to sit at the back of the bus. NRA tells cops to enforce anti-gunowner laws with zero tolerance — some of those laws mean a 10-year prison sentence for mere possession.

And even though Heston's latest "From My Cold Dead Hands" decree came three years after an NRA Attorney escorted a banned gun into police hands, the NRA video is still being promoted on NRALive's home page to this day. If Heston's decree were showing a change in position — from surrendering to fighting — why is the video still being promoted?

What is "honest" about obeying a gun ban? Martin Luther King told us that "one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." Mr. Heston has bragged about having marched with Dr. King in civil rights marches. Does NRA's surrender mean Dr. King's passive resistance was the wrong approach? Or does NRA simply wave guns around making idle and empty declarations of fighting only when it serves their hypocritical fundraising efforts?

If obeying a gun ban was an American thing to do, the American Revolution would never have taken place; the men at Lexington & Concord would simply have handed them over like Mr. Doss did, and we'd still be a British colony. Instead, they said "You can have our cannons, but you'll have to take our balls with them." And they meant it.

Whether or not to obey an unconstitutional gun ban is up to the individual gun owner living under such an edict. And many thousands of California gun owners are operating in violation of several of the state's illegal gun edicts. If these people, many of them NRA members, follow Heston's "From My Cold Dead Hands" advice and shoot a gun-confiscating civil servant, will NRA ignore them, vilify them, or worse?

How does NRA reconcile "From My Cold Dead Hands" with their current and ongoing call for "zero tolerance enforcement of all gun laws"?

NRA members deserve to have clear communication from HQ on these vital issues.

QUESTION FOR MR. HESTON & MR. LAPIERRE: Are you saying that we gunowners are supposed to turn in effective militia rifles, but fight with our lives over single shot muskets? Please clarify. More questions

http://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?id=3273

[elsolo]

Most American gunowners would turn them in, for the same reason most of us don't have unregistered FA firearms. The odds of becoming bubba's cellmate far outweigh the odds of becoming a part of the next revolutionary war.

[Pred@tor]

http://www.thefiringline.com/Misc/library/why_i_will_not_obey_california.html

Its old but long I could not make a new thread about it. Read it here is another out cry back then. We obey these laws yet get into trouble. When exactly is enough? You guys are probably right. Until a Henry Bowman comes along our guns are gone. Talk the talk but walk the walk right?

[Pred@tor]

There were allot more posts that I guess were not "PC." :D

[cartman]

Most American gunowners would turn them in, for the same reason most of us don't have unregistered FA firearms. The odds of becoming bubba's cellmate far outweigh the odds of becoming a part of the next revolutionary war.

If thats true then why is it estimated that only 10% of kali residents reg'd their AW's?

[bwiese]

If thats true then why is it estimated that only 10% of kali residents reg'd their AW's?

That # is wildly inaccurate and only spouted by people with an inadequate knowledge of CA AW laws, usu by those out of state or from 3rd tier supposedly 'gun rights' organizations.

The percentage is much more likely quite a bit higher than that. That was probably based on an inaccurate knowledge of Roberti-Roos, and how it was actually legally applied - remember, Roberti-Roos only applied to 55 or so specifically-named guns, and lookalikes/clones of Colt AR15s and AK47s were NOT banned under 'series' concept until middle of 2000's SB23. Many, many of the guns people thought were AWs were actually not, and it was one of the reasons SB23 came about.

Lack of AW registration is likely more prevalent per AW in sparsely-populated counties due to DOJ's twice-over, wholly inadequate 'marketing' campaign - a couple of radio ads on a few marginal radio stations and a few TV ads on the Mexican wrestling channel at midnight.

But most guns in CA are simply *not* AWs. The AW folks are a smaller but perhaps more intensely vocal segment of that market. The most popular rifles sold in CA are still Ruger 10/22s and Rem 700s, with some cheap milsurp rifles as backfill.

There are approx ~166K reg'd AWs in CA, and each owner on average owns somewhere around ~2.1- 2.4 AWs. (Some very small percentage of these reg'd AWs are LEO registrations, or 1990s court-imposed "we caught you, go register it" late registrations).

I won't include in the total out of which the above percentage is taken any illegal guns (full auto), stolen guns, illegally acquired/brought-in guns, impossible-to-register guns due to legal disability of owner to own them, etc.

I will also not include guns in the base total that were modified to not be registerable (removal of flash hiders from M1As, removal of detachable magazines from SKSes)

I believe there's only a *max.* of ~500k CA AWs whose owners and/or guns were eligible to register.

The smaller size of this segment is part of the reason why AW politics didn't get much support from "the duck hunters" the first time around (Roberti-Roos).

This is also why the OLL thing threw a monkey wrench at the DOJ and why they started panicking - in a very short period the # of almost-AWs grew by 10%, and if a reg period had opened there'd be *at least* a 30+% growth in number of registered AWs. Any outside organization examing DOJ performance stats would wonder what happened, why the sudden spurt...

[mikehaas]

Oh, Shamaya. Nuff said (yawn). Big NRA hater, never worth a first look, much less a second.

Back then his website, was recommending that CA gun-owners simply violate CA AW law, that CADOJ would never retaliate - that's how much of a genius those guys were. But did THEY ever do that? Like all "hate NRA, send us money instead" groups, they catered to the frustrated and angry gun-owner, trying to make them more frustrated and angry with their spin. Read that trash again and you'll see what I mean.)

You see, the frustrated and angry may send them money - nobody else will. Same game as GOA and all the other "sky is falling" slime - all who try to convince you THEY are your RKBA savior, using hit pieces like this (and GOA's recent vomit on SB297 - same thing, no different). In reality, they are irrelevant and they know it, but they hope you don't.

These guys tried to make their claim to fame by - get this - attacking Ashcroft. You know - the Attorney General that reversed the Clinton DOJ's position on the Second Amendment? Ashcroft declared the Second describes an individual right, the opposite of the Clinton "collective right" BS and was fully supportive of the Second Amendment.
http://nrawinningteam.com/0105/ashcroft.html

Your first indication groups like this can't be trusted - they turn their guns on our own side. They have to in order to fundraise. You never see NRA do that, even in response to cretins like this. (KABA even attacked NRA volunteers in California - US!)

Note they aren't around anymore. Lack of contributions. So sad for them - to have to get real jobs and stop taking advantage of well-meaning but frustrated gun-owners. But we can all rejoice.

Now excuse me, after seeing that crap again, I have to shower.

Mike

[mikehaas]

Oh, forgot to mention - KABA was the group that ignored advice from virtually every well-known Second Amendment attorney and scholar (Don Kates, Dave Kopel, Chuck Michel, etc) and pushed the disasterous Silveira case to the SCOTUS. Thank God that turkey never got cert.

Not a friend to gun-owners.

Mike

[mikehaas]

As you say in the subject, this is O-L-D. Why repost old news? Are you trying to attack NRA too?

Mike

[bwiese]

Oh, forgot to mention - KABA was the group that ignored advice from virtually every well-known Second Amendment attorney and scholar (Don Kates, Dave Kopel, Chuck Michel, etc) and pushed the disasterous Silveira case to the SCOTUS. Thank God that turkey never got cert.

Yes, but that doesn't matter because he's more proRKBA than we are :(

I heard somewhere that it cost at least $500K of NRA funds just to render Silviera into the status it's currently in.

Friggin' idiots who don't plan ahead, backing a lawsuit by some junior-leagu rugby playing lawyers who drew up the complaint over beers.

That's pro-gun help we don't need.

[-hanko]

The odds of becoming bubba's cellmate far outweigh the odds of becoming a part of the next revolutionary war.
More replies on calguns regarding the possibility of alternative prison lifestyles than on all other gun forums put together:D The first reply on this thread, priceless:rolleyes:

-hanko