Note from the founder-1954

 

The right to own and bear arms is guaranteed by our constitution and an American heritage that had its glorious beginning on Lexington Commons, where sounded “The shot heard around the world.”

 

The prayers of Washington and the bloody foot prints in the snows of Valley Forge left a mark on the National consciousness that we must never forget.

 

Soft living and softer heads are indeed a menace to future Americans. We must not allow our inspired beginnings to degenerate into rubber stamp regimentation, to be led by conniving minorities, unthinking “do gooders” and down right enemies of our country.

 

Reverend Harrison of Virginia states, “When the government can no longer trust its citizens with guns, then the citizen can no longer trust the government with authority.”

 

Whether you like guns or not, the right to own arms and the right to vote, are the most powerful guarantees of a true democracy.

 

Contrary to public concepts, guns do not kill people. The urge to kill begins in the brain cells of man. Anti-gun legislation intended to halt crime, aimed at the inert object, the “gun”, is a subterfuge… the product of muddled thinking.

 

Let’s face it. No gun has leaped into position cocked and coordinated and fired without the premeditated guidance of the human brain, the true focal point and fermenter of the criminal act.

 

Why not aim at the cause and not the effect? Man is the “cause” the gun is the “effect”.  When man criminally kills, the object used to perpetrate the act is certainly secondary.  Jack handles, garroting, poison and that favorite weapon of the press, “the blunt instrument”, and that modern juggernaut, the family car, are all secondary to the act.

 

Why penalize the rank and file of gun lovers and sportsman with unrealistic legislation?  It is most certainly an imposition on 98 per cent and a dubious restraint on the remaining 2 per cent. I believe it was the Infantry Journal that made a national survey on the effectiveness of gun registration (unconstitutional) as a deterrent to crime. Not in one instance could a case be cited where it helped to apprehend a criminal.

 

Let the ambitious and sometimes poorly informed lawmakers wipe the fog off their spectacles, sharpen their perceptions and desist impounding fire hydrants that the driver clipped. Using that old bit of American linsey woolsey, whimsy, “To paddock the barn after the horse has been stolen” is a useless bit of business; especially when you still hear the hoofs of the escaping evil doer. The moral of this homily is, “Get the horse thief, let that poor horse alone.”

 

-Osborne Klavestad

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