An Appeal to Reason(s)

Dear Xavier:

I saw on your blog that you were getting frustrated with Blogger. I just wanted to send you a note expressing my appreciation for you sharing your knowledge on your blog. I have been reading your blog for years. It is the first one I check on my daily round of the Internet. I have learned a lot from reading your thoughts.

After shooting competitively for many years and teaching friends and family informally, I decided to become an NRA-Certified Instructor in April of this year so I could teach even more people responsible gun ownership. I'm now certified in Pistol and Personal Protection in the Home. Before the year is out, I will be certified in Personal Protection outside the Home as well. Next year I will add Shotgun for good measure. This past weekend I taught my first CWP course.

I thought it might cheer up your day to know that four more responsible citizens will soon join the ranks of CWP-holders, partly because you inspired someone you have never met through your blog. Many more are soon to follow. Please keep sharing your thoughts.

Also, if you ever visit Columbia, SC, please let me know. I'd be honored to show you around.

Cheers,

a reader from SC

A day or two ago I received an email from a reader that I have asked to publish here. Permission was granted.

While the issues I am still having with blogger are unresolved, and the internal strife at The High Road is on my mind, there are more important issues at hand. At this time in the history of the United States, gun owners face a turning point concerning who we place in office as president. This presidential election has the power to irreversibly impact the rights of gun owners, both with the power of Presidential veto and through placing a blatant anti-gunner in office as the President of the Senate. At present there is a 2 or 3 vote pro-gun majority in the US Senate. We do not need a confirmed vote against us as a tie breaker.

The next US President will likely appoint at least one, perhaps three Supreme Court Justices who will consider the meaning of the second amendment in upcoming legal battles. The narrow SCOTUS majority for gun owners shown in Heller v DC could be overturned by a single appointment. At least three appointments are likely. Justice John Paul Stevens is 88 years old. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 75. Justice Antonin Scalia is 72. Gun owners in the United States could be irrevocably affected for the next fifty years, perhaps forever. Gun rights could be erased as a generation of gun owners die off stripped of their firearms, leaving an apathetic progeny that has never experienced the right to keep and bear arms.

This is a crucial time. There is much at stake, and it goes beyond blogs and forums for gun owners. This is not a time to be bickering or fighting among ourselves. This is a time to solidify our vote and make damned sure that the right to keep and bear arms is preserved. The only way to do that is by force multiplication. We must build our numbers. Each gun owner has one vote. We must educate each other on the impact of our votes, and we must convert more people to law abiding voting gun ownership.

This email gives me hope. You will notice in the small group of students a bald man not unlike myself. A black man. A woman. A young man. A wide strata of people who only wish to defend themselves from harm. Gun ownership and the desire to be safe extends across all lines. It is a universal human desire and an absolute human right. We must not let the right to keep and bear arms disappear because we were too stupid to see beyond other issues. Without the right to keep and bear arms, the government is no longer restrained by the people. The government no longer is controlled by the vote. It becomes a monster and it will eventually enslave the very citizens it should serve.