I can't say it any better than mr. vanderboegh, ( http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com ) so I'll just let him speak. go over there to his blog and say thank you for coming all the way up here to shake his fist in the face of tyranny.
My name is Mike Vanderboegh and I'm a smuggler. I am from the great free state of Alabama and I am a Three Percenter.
If you need to pigeonhole my politics I consider myself a
Christian libertarian. I believe in free men, free markets, the rule of
law under the Founder's Republic and that the Constitution extends to
everyone regardless of race, creed, color or religion.
I most especially believe in the right of the people to keep and bear arms as the ultimate guarantor of liberty.
I have also been called a "seditionist" by members of the
current regime. If faithfully fulfilling my oath to the Founders'
Republic and unrelenting hostility to those who would undermine and
overthrow it makes me a "seditionist" then I cheerfully plead guilty.
The Three Percent movement I founded has been denounced by
that paragon of moral virtue Bill Clinton and I am a perennial
"honorable mention" on the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of
dangerous folks. I have even been the subject of an eighteen and a half
minute rant by Rachel Madcow on MSNBC and the current Attorney General
of the United States knows -- and despises -- me by name because of the
Fast and Furious scandal that, with my friend David Codrea, I broke the
news of on the Internet. Eric Holder would not be surprised to know
that the feeling is mutual.
The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence calls me an
"insurrectionist" because I don't believe, as they do, in a government
monopoly of violence, but rather in a literal interpretation of the 2nd
Amendment as a bulwark against tyranny. Well, as my friend Kurt Hofmann
says, "It is better to be despised by the despicable than admired by
the admirable" and I suppose my remarks here today will only reinforce
my enemies' opinions of me. I think I can bear the burden.
Yesterday was the anniversary of the battles of Lexington
and Concord in 1775, but also of the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto in
1943 and that of the Branch Davidians at Waco fifty years later to the
day -- two examples of what happens when governments exercise a monopoly
of violence.
It is proper, then, to contemplate the lessons of the date
in history -- April 19th -- then, now and in the near future. What I
say now I say with reluctance, sadness and not a little bit of dread,
but say it I must.
FOR SILENCE IN THE FACE OF TYRANNY IMPLIES CONSENT -- AND I DO NOT CONSENT!
Neither do I believe that you consent, for you would not be
here today if you did. But what I say is not easy to say nor easy to
hear and many of you will not like it.
"An unconstitutional law is void." So says the standard
legal text American Jurisprudence. That is certainly true. The tricky
part is how we are to make that point when the local, state and federal
executive and legislative branches as well as the courts are in the
hands of the domestic enemies of the Constitution. Every one who is
currently trying to take away your right to arms starts out by saying "I
support the 2nd Amendment." Let me tell you a home truth from Alabama
-- Barack Obama supports the 2nd Amendment about as much as Adolf Hitler
appreciated Jewish culture, or Joe Stalin believed in individual
liberty. Believe what politicians do, not what they say.
So what shall we do about this current spate of tyranny breaking out all over?
The facsimile of a semi-automatic pistol that some of you
hold in your hands was smuggled into your state from the South.
Manufactured in Georgia, trans-shipped to Alabama, it came across your
state line in the trunk of a car. The fact that the authorities of your
state have not yet banned "sponge guns" is immaterial. It could as
easily been a whole trunk full of real pistols. Indeed, before this
year no one thought that other firearms and related items would ever be
banned -- but they have been. No one thought that the authorities of
your state would pass laws making criminals out of the previously
law-abiding -- but they did. If they catch you violating their
unconstitutional laws, they will -- when they please -- send armed men
to work their will upon you. And people -- innocent of any crime save
the one these tyrants created -- will die resisting them.
Yet despite the cost, these unconstitutional laws MUST be
resisted. For if not now, when? And if not us, who? This is no longer
a "slippery slope" leading to firearm registration and eventual
confiscation -- it is a precipice that some states have already plunged
over and that the federal government threatens to follow. Arrests are
happening NOW. When, if not now, shall we resist? Will we allow
ourselves to be shoved back once again, from the free exercise of our
God-given, natural and inalienable rights to liberty? -- Shoved back
once more, muttering but compliant?
THAT IS HOW WE GOT TO THIS PLACE --- WE NEVER SHOVED BACK WHEN WE COULD DO SO WITHOUT VIOLENCE. Where does it stop? When we are all disarmed slaves?
The Founders knew how to answer such tyranny. When Captain
John Parker -- one of the three percent of American colonists who
actively took the field against the King during the Revolution --
mustered his Minutemen on Lexington Green, it was in a demonstration of
ARMED civil disobedience. He might have retreated at the British
approach, but he didn't. He might have ordered his men to lay down
their arms, but he didn't. His defiance was silent but plainly stated.
A veteran of the French and Indian War, he did not want a war. He knew
intimately the horrors of war. BUT HE ALSO KNEW THAT SOME THINGS ARE WORSE THAN WAR. The British could not tolerate his silent defiance -- and someone fired a shot.
But even before the shot heard 'round the world, the
colonists understood their weaknesses and their military needs and did
something about it. They smuggled. They smuggled Dutch gunpowder and
French flints. They smuggled tents and uniform cloth and artillery and
ammunition. Boston was the high headquarters of anti-British smuggling
and John Hancock was its prime minister. Connecticut was a small empire
built on patriotic smuggling. The colonists knew what to do and they
did it, regardless of the risk -- regardless of all the King's ministers
and the King's soldiery.
They defied the King. They resisted his edicts. They evaded his laws and they smuggled. Lord above, did they smuggle.
Now we find ourselves in a similar situation. The new King
Barack and his minions have determined to disarm us. We must determine
to resist them.
No one wants a new civil war (except, apparently, the
anti-constitional tyrants who passed these laws and the media toadies
who cheer them on) but one is staring us in the face. Yes, a civil war
is staring us in the face. To think otherwise is to whistle past the
graveyard of our own history. We must, if we wish to avoid armed
conflict, get this message across to the collectivists who have declared
their appetites for our liberty, our property and our lives --
WHEN DEMOCRACY TURNS TO TYRANNY, THE ARMED CITIZEN STILL GETS TO VOTE.
Just like King George, such people will not care, nor modify
their behavior, by what you say, no matter how loudly or in what
numbers you say it. They will only pay attention to what you DO.
So defy them. Resist their laws. Evade them. Smuggle in
what they command you not to have. Only by our ACTS will they be
impressed. Then, if they mean to have a civil war, they will at least
have been informed of the unintended consequences of their tyrannical
actions. Again I say --
Defy. Resist. Evade. Smuggle. If you wish to stay
free and to pass down that freedom to your children's children you can
do no less than to become the lawbreakers that they have
unconstitutionally made of you. Accept that fact. Embrace it. And
resolve to be the very best, most successful lawbreakers you can be.
One last thing before I go. On Thursday I smuggled a
half-dozen 30 round AR-15 standard capacity magazines into Connecticut
in deliberate disobedience of the new state diktat.
So to Martin Looney, Mike Williams, Larry Cafarro and John McKinney I'd like to say this:
I JUST COMMITTED A "D" CLASS FELONY, YOU TYRANNICAL MORONS -- PROVE IT -- WHICH YOU CAN'T -- AND CATCH ME IF YOU CAN.
And I'll tell you something else. When the new ammo
restrictions go into effect the first week of July, I'll be back -- with
two full crates of 7.62x39 ball ammunition and I will transfer said
ammunition into the hands of a Connecticut citizen without the state's
permission or paperwork.
And after I break their unconstitutional laws again, I'll be
sitting in Frank Pepe's Pizza down in New Haven waiting for Looney and
Company to come arrest me --
ANY TIME THEY THINK THEY CAN MAKE IT STICK AND FEEL FROGGY ENOUGH TO TRY.
Thank you.
