Posted by
John Caile on Monday, May 11, 2009 12:47:41 PM
Herewith, for your enjoyment and consideration, the unedited words of one Michael Vanderboegh:
No More Free Wacos: An Explication of the Obvious - to Eric Holder, Attorney General of the United States
5 May 2009
Dear Eric,
I
believe I'm entitled to use your first name, since you have expressed
an interest in circumscribing my liberty and seizing my personal
property, to wit, three heretofore legal semi-automatic rifles of
military utility (mistakenly dubbed "assault rifles"). Anyone who wants
to do something so personal and intimate as to commit premeditated
theft upon you need not be given any honorifics, don't you agree? I
mean, if a street thug announces that he wishes to rob you, there is no
need to address him as "Sir" this or "Mister" that. Why should
rapacious government thieves who announce their intentions so boldly be
treated any differently? If you are offended by the fact that you are
unused to being addressed in this manner, I can only say that you are
not as offended as I am at the prospect of your administration trying
to steal my property and liberty.
But, that is not why I write
you today. No, I received what I believe to be a credible report this
afternoon about someone whom the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms
and Explosives views as a real thorn in their side. The substance of
the report has it that you, or someone in your office, has, in
reference to this friend of mine, muttered something very much like the
following:
"What miserable drones and traitors have I
nurtured and promoted in my household who let their lord be treated
with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric! . . . Will no one rid
me of this troublesome priest?"
That, of course, was Henry the Second speaking of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, in the year of our Lord 1170.
Shortly
thereafter, four of Henry's knights, Reginald Fitzurse, Hugh de
Moreville, William de Tracy, and Richard le Breton entered Canterbury
Cathedral, and beat Becket to death with clubs, scattering his brains
on the floor. "Let us go," said one, "this fellow will not be getting
up again."
That political murder had great consequences for Henry, and he regretted it the rest of his long reign.
But
enough of Henry. Let's talk about the alleged threat. I am sure that
this is a base canard, something attributed to you by someone who just
wishes to make trouble. However, as it happens, this is not the first
time, or even the second, that I have heard such threats attributed to
your department since the election.
Yet, surely, such an
educated man as yourself would not make King Henry's mistake. However,
it seems likely that it did come out of your department, so let us say
that in some perverted attempt to convey a threat to "this troublesome
priest" one of your subordinates actually uttered it. Let us say, for
purposes of hypothetical argument, that it is in some sense, true.
I
know how agencies can spin out of control if not properly guided by
upper management. So do you. I'm sure that you saw the television
images out of Texas on 28 February and 19 April 1993. I think you would
agree with me that neither of those days likely represented the
official policy of the Clinton administration. Yet, they happened.
Subsequent
to that, citizens formed self-defense militias, millions more of your
hated "assault weapons" were imported and sold before the ban and we
spent the next seven years staring uneasily at one another, waiting for
the next government-issue bloody shoe to drop. Oh, yes, and your party
lost control of the Congress, with even President Clinton blaming it on
the passage of the Brady Bill and the Assault Weapons Ban. The Law of
Unintended Consequences sure sucks, doesn't it?
But, the other shoe didn't drop.
Yet,
there's something you should understand about that whole process. As an
amateur historian and keen observer of current affairs I can see it
without difficulty.
You only get one free Waco.
If the
statistics on the sales of firearms and ammunition tell you anything,
you ought to understand that the same dynamic is at work now and yet
from your point of view you haven't DONE anything to deserve it. Oh,
you've muttered occasional threats to reinstate the Assault Weapons
Ban, but no one believes politicians when they speak anyway.
So why, you may ask yourself, is this happening?
Like
I said, Eric, you only get one free Waco. It was your original sin. The
botched raid, the massacre, the cover-ups, we've been through them
already. You may remember that no one was held to account for that --
not very reassuring to the citizenry. And if, as is apparent, someone
in the Department of Justice hasn't learned the lessons of the first
Waco, we, the millions of "bitter clingers" out here in fly-over
country, have. We have no reason to be trusting of your motives. For
we, and you, have been here before.
So, let me explicate the
obvious: There are no do-overs, not when it comes to your employees
killing American citizens for bad reasons. Look around, count the guns,
estimate the billions of rounds of small arms ammunition in private
hands, and consider that the latest Janet has already declared most of
the rest of us, including veterans, "domestic terrorists" anyway. Do
you think we have not noticed? Do you think we do not remember the
misdeeds of the last administration you were a part of?
In
addition, recent government misconduct -- bureaucratic, legal and
judicial -- in the Wayne Fincher and David Olofson cases (the same kind
of chicanery that rightly caused you to overturn the conviction of
Alaska Senator Ted Stevens) has convinced many of us that there is no
percentage in betting on a fair trial if the ATF sets their sights on
us and we are not part of the Mandarin class.
If we are no
longer under the rule of constitutional law but are merely subject to
irreversible bureaucratic diktat and we do not fancy being railroaded
in a patently unfair federal trial where expert witnesses are denied
access to evidence, then our options when approached by ATF agents are
rather limited. It is plain, in the absence of the right of a fair
trial, that a target of ATF investigation has little to lose by
resorting to the right of an unfair gunfight. This may be an unintended
consequence of those cases. It is nonetheless real.
Wake up and
smell what your administration is shoveling from downwind, where we are
forced to stand. And please understand the predicament you've put
yourselves in by your present and former bad behavior.
There will be no more free Wacos.
Please,
for all our sakes, counsel your employees, who apparently seek to curry
your favor by misquoting you, that replicating 1993 is neither good
policy nor is it your intention. We don't need any more itchy trigger
fingers in this country.
And Eric, not to put too fine a point
on it, but you and I both can make an educated guess about what
mischief will likely ensue if ANY high-profile Second Amendment
activist "has an accident". Best to tell your lads and lasses to stick
to those nice safe paper cases (you know, the ones with the 4473s
completed with a "Y", rather than "yes") and confine their wet-work
fantasies to their off-duty reading. There's still lots of vicious drug
gangs, murderous career criminals and real terrorists out there to keep
them busy without picking a fight with honest American gun owners who
merely want to be left alone.
Thank you for your kind attention in this matter. I wish you a nice, full and safe term of office.
Really.
Mike Vanderboegh
PO Box 926
Pinson, AL 35126
GeorgeMason1776@aol.com