By Pastor Chuck Baldwin
February 22, 2008
The last thing we need is another liberal neocon in the White House. If the Presidency of George W. Bush proved anything, it proved the hazard of electing phony Republican conservatives. At least one is able to clearly see a liberal for what he or she is when they have a “D” behind their name. But put an “R” behind the name and suddenly their liberal, Big-Government, anti-freedom agenda is barely recognized, which makes a liberal Republican much more dangerous than a liberal Democrat.
Let me say it straight out: a John McCain Presidency would be far worse than a Barack Obama Presidency. With a Democrat in the White House, conservatives and Christians suddenly find their principles and are able to offer resistance. Put a Republican in the Oval Office, however, and those same people become blind, deaf, and dumb to most any principle they profess.
Nowhere is McCain’s chicanery and duplicity more jeopardous than in the area of the right to keep and bear arms. On issues relating to the Second Amendment, John McCain is a disaster! For example, the highly respected Gun Owners of America (GOA) rates McCain with a grade of F-. McCain’s failing grade is well deserved.
John McCain sponsored an amendment to S. 1805 on March 2, 2004 that would outlaw the private sale of firearms at gun shows. According to GOA, the provision would effectively eliminate gun shows, because every member of an organization sponsoring a gun show could be imprisoned if the organization fails to notify each and every “person who attends the special firearms event of the requirements [under the Brady Law].”
John McCain also sponsored an Incumbent Protection provision to the so-called “Campaign Finance Reform” bill, which severely curtails the ability of outside groups (such as GOA) to communicate the actions of incumbent politicians to members and supporters prior to an election.
The GOA report of the 106th Congress reveals that out of 15 votes relating to the right to keep and bear arms, Senator John McCain voted favorably only 4 times. Put that into a percentage and McCain’s pro-Second Amendment voting record is a pathetic 27%.
In addition, GOA warns that John McCain supported legislation that would force federal agents to increase efforts in arresting and convicting honest gun owners who may inadvertently violate one of the many federal anti-gun laws, which punish mere technicalities, such as gun possession.
For example, if John McCain’s proposed legislation were to become law, a gun owner who travels with a gun through a school zone or who uses one of the family handguns to go target shooting with a 15-year old could be sent to prison. And a person who uses a gun for self-defense could be sent to prison for a mandatory minimum of five years.
But there is so much more to the McCain madness.
Former California State Senator H.L. “Bill” Richardson wrote this about John McCain, “He’s [McCain’s] proven his dislike for conservatives and would gut us at every opportunity.
“Why do I say that? Because of three decades of experience as a Republican California Senator and a fifty year activist in the conservative movement. I have first hand, in-their-face experience with elitist RINO’s (Republican in Name Only) office holders. They are biblically ignorant, power hungry, status seeking egotists who have no difficulty aiding their liberal Democrat colleagues whenever their arms are politely twisted. The one thing they have in common with liberal Democrats is their dislike for all conservatives, especially those who are Bible-believing. McCain, as president, would stifle the voices of elected Republican leaders and try to legislate the conservative movement out of existence.”
Senator Richardson went on to say that he would in no way vote for John McCain, if indeed McCain is the Republican nominee (which he obviously will be).
I wonder how many gun owners and other professing pro-freedom Americans have already fallen victim to McCain’s phony conservative campaign? Do they not realize that they are giving a rope to the hangman? And that they–conservatives and gun owners–are the ones who McCain will send to the gallows? What is wrong with the American people these days? Have they not been betrayed enough by these phony conservative Republicans?
For example, President George W. Bush recently nominated Michael Sullivan to be Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Sullivan is one of the nation’s most rabid anti-gunners. GOA’s Larry Pratt describes Sullivan as being “as anti-gun as Ted Kennedy.” Honest gun owners, lawful firearms dealers, and law-abiding gun show operators could have no worse enemy within the federal government than Michael Sullivan. We could expect no worse from Hillary Clinton. And a John McCain Presidency would doubtless give us more of the same.
Regarding the Second Amendment, the American people have no better friend than Ron Paul. He has a 20-year proven track record of fidelity to the right to keep and bear arms. The GOA rates Congressman Paul with a grade of A+. According to GOA Executive Director Larry Pratt, Ron Paul has been a leader in the fight to defend and restore the Second Amendment. He has sponsored legislation to repeal the following: the Brady law; the requirement to lock up your guns; the law permitting the U.S. to be part of the U.N (which, among other attacks on American freedoms, seeks to ban privately transferred firearms); participation in UNESCO; federal prohibitions on any pilot wishing to carry a handgun to and in his cockpit; and the so-called “assault weapons” ban (prior to its sunsetting in 2004).
Ron Paul has also sponsored legislation requiring states to treat the concealed carry permit of one state the same as they do that state’s driver’s license. Dr. Paul also opposes a national ID card, which would be a tool of government to identify gun ownership.
Gun owners (along with conservatives and Christians of all sorts) should be ashamed of themselves for allowing an angry, gun-grabbing liberal such as John McCain to become the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee, while rejecting the candidacy of one of America’s most principled pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, pro-Constitution, and pro-freedom legislators of this generation: Congressman Ron Paul.
I say again, the last thing we need is another liberal neocon in the White House. John McCain may have an “R” behind his name, but he is just another establishment liberal: one America cannot afford.
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© 2008 Chuck Baldwin - All Rights Reserved
Chuck Baldwin is Founder-Pastor of Crossroads Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida. Dr. Baldwin is also the host of a lively, hard-hitting syndicated radio talk show “Chuck Baldwin Live” This is a daily, one hour long call-in show and was the Constitution Party vice-presidential nominee in 2004.
To learn more about his radio talk show please visit his web site at: www.chuckbaldwinlive.com. When responding, please include your name, city and state
Chuck Baldwin
December 14, 2007
“He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.” (Luke 22:36 KJV)
Most of us are aware that the heroic actions of a brave woman at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado a few days ago saved the lives of perhaps scores, or even hundreds, of people. However, her bravery would not have counted for much had she not been armed.
On that fateful December Sunday, a man by the name of Matthew Murray entered the church armed to the teeth. According to press reports, he was armed with a semi-automatic rifle, two handguns, some smoke grenades, and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition.
By the time Murray arrived in the Colorado Springs church, he had already killed four people: two at a missionary training center miles away, and two in the church parking lot. He had wounded several others. No one realized it at the time, but the man was a serial killer in the midst of a rampage. He doubtless planned to kill as many people as he could, as there were thousands of people inside the church. Had there not been an armed citizen in the church house, the death toll would have been massive.
According to church spokesmen, the congregation has over a dozen members who volunteered to serve as security personnel for the church. Jeanne Assam was one of those volunteers.
A former police officer, Assam said, “I saw him [Murray] coming through the doors, and I took cover, and I waited for him to get closer. I came out of cover, I identified myself and engaged him and took him down.” Murray died in the exchange. Although Assam shot him several times with her 9mm pistol, the coroner’s office said that Murray actually succumbed to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. After being incapacitated by Assam’s gunfire, Murray apparently turned one of his weapons on himself.
Chalk one up for the good guys, or in this case, good gals.
Have you noticed how the media dropped the Colorado story as soon as it was discovered that a lawfully armed citizen ended the potential massacre by using her own handgun? Had the killer been successful in murdering scores of people, however, it would have been at the top of the news for weeks. As it is, the story is already buried in the dungeon section of the news, if it is in the news at all.
One thing the national news media will always ignore is the practice of lawful self-defense. For example, most people are probably not aware of the fact that American citizens use a firearm to defend themselves more than 2.4 million times EVERY YEAR. That is more than 6,500 times EVERY DAY. This means that, each year, firearms are used 60 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives. Furthermore, of the 2.4 million self-defense cases, more than 192,000 are by women defending themselves against sexual assault. And in less than eight percent of those occasions is a shot actually fired. The vast majority of the time (92%), the mere presence of a firearm helps to avert a major crime from occurring. That is what Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) concluded after extensive research. According to Rep. Bartlett, the number of defensive uses is four times the number of crimes reported committed with guns.
John Lott, senior research scientist at the University of Maryland, agrees with Bartlett. His book “More Guns, Less Crime” documents the fact that–instead of being a cause of crime–firearms in the hands of private citizens are actually a major deterrent to crime.
Another fact conveniently ignored by the major media is the connection between wanton killings and so-called “gun-free” zones. For an example of this, look no further than the Virginia Tech massacre. In spite of Virginia state laws that allow citizens to carry concealed weapons for self-defense, Virginia Tech forbade its students and faculty from carrying weapons for self-defense on campus. Had a student or faculty member been armed–as was Ms. Assam in the Colorado Springs attack–no doubt many, if not most, of the Virginia Tech victims would not have died. Obviously, bad guys do not pay any attention to “gun-free” zones, except to note that such zones create a free-killing environment.
Is it any wonder that those states and cities with the most restrictive gun control laws tend to also be home to the highest crime rates? The old saying is still true. “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” There is another saying I like even better. “When guns are outlawed, I will be an outlaw.”
Even our Lord understood and validated the right of every person to arm themselves for personal self-defense. He said, “He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.” (Luke 22:36 KJV) The old Roman sword was the First Century equivalent of a modern handgun. It was the most practical and convenient form of self-defense available at that time. Also, please note that at least two of Jesus’ disciples (one of whom was Simon Peter) were in the habit of carrying their own personal swords, and Jesus never rebuked them. (See Luke 22:38.)
Jesus also acknowledged, “When a strong man ARMED [emphasis added] keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace.” (Luke 11:21)
Furthermore, the Apostle Paul said, emphatically, “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” (I Tim. 5:8) Does “not providing for his own” include not providing protection? Of course it does.
The right and, yes, obligation of personal self-defense is entrenched in both Christian and American tradition. People who would deny citizens the right to arm themselves are either naïvely ignorant or deliberately duplicitous. As Robert Heinlein said, “An armed society is a polite society.”
America’s Founding Fathers agreed with Heinlein. Thomas Jefferson said, “No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.” He also said, “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
Samuel Adams said, “[T]he said Constitution [shall] be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.”
James Madison said, “To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms.”
Thomas Paine said, “[A]rms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property . . . Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them.”
George Washington called the private collections of arms “the people’s liberty’s teeth.”
America must always preserve the right to keep and bear arms. To do any less is to invite oppression and tyranny, not to mention acts of violence.
Some years back, Alan Rice of the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) wrote, “Since 1900 at least seven major genocides have occurred resulting in the murder of 50-60 million people:
*Ottoman Turkey, 1915-17; 1-1.5 million Armenians murdered;
*Soviet Union, 1929-53; 20 million anti-Communists and anti-Stalinists murdered;
*Nazi Germany & Occupied Europe, 1933-45; 13 million Jews, Gypsies, and Anti-Nazi murdered;
*China, 1949-52, 1957-60 & 1966-1976; 20 million anti-Communists murdered;
*Guatemala, 1960-1981; 100,000 Mayan Indians murdered;
*Uganda, 1971-1979; 300,000 Christians and Political Rivals of Idi Amin murdered;
*Cambodia, 1975-1979; 1 million murdered.”
Rice continued to say, “In all seven of the genocides summarized above, gun control laws were in force before the genocide occurred, in some cases decades before. In five of the seven genocides, the lethal law, the gun control law was in force before the genocide regime took power.”
Rice also said, “Gun control laws are usually enacted during a crisis or a perceived crisis.” He then said, “Government officials, not hate groups or common criminals, were responsible for these seven genocides. In most of these cases the murder victims outnumbered their murderers; yet they were powerless to defend themselves because they were disarmed.”
Do the math yourself. Absent an armed citizen, 32 innocent people lost their lives at Virginia Tech, while the presence of 1 armed citizen resulted in 2 innocent deaths in Colorado Springs. Furthermore, the presence of over 200 million firearms in the possession of the American people has done more to keep America free than any other human element–bar none!
Therefore, to help keep your family safe and your country free, go buy a gun.
© Chuck Baldwin
Chuck Baldwin is Founder-Pastor of Crossroads Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida. Dr. Baldwin is also the host of a lively, hard-hitting syndicated radio talk show “Chuck Baldwin Live” This is a daily, one hour long call-in show and was the Constitution Party vice-presidential nominee in 2004.
To learn more about his radio talk show please visit his web site at: www.chuckbaldwinlive.com. When responding, please include your name, city and state
YOUR PARTY, YOUR PRINCIPLES PASS THIS ON!
Mary Starrett
Communications Director
QUOTE:
“They that are on their guard and appear ready to receive their adversaries, are in much less danger of being attacked than the supine, secure and egligent. - Benjamin Franklin
PRESS RELEASE:
Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition
Lancaster, PA: The country’s largest third party, based on voter registration, the Constitution Party, points to recent shootings in Omaha, Nebraska and Arvada and Colorado Springs, Colorado and suggests Americans question the notion that more and stricter gun laws save lives.
New Life Church member Jeanne Assam protected the lives of members of her church Sunday by using a firearm.
“An armed civilian acting swiftly and deliberately saved the lives of perhaps as many as 100 people (USA Today) thereby stopping a madman who was on a murderous rampage”, said Constitution Party National Committee Chairman Jim Clymer. “Instead of four dead bodies there would have been scores more if not for the fact that a law-abiding citizen ended the carnage by using a gun”, added Clymer.
“Just note the horrific consequences of having so-called ‘gun-free zones’ in light of the bloody scenes at Virginia Tech and the Omaha Mall. It should be apparent that guns in the hands of law-abiding people save lives,” Clymer noted.
The Constitution Party believes the media have downplayed the most important aspect of this tragic story.
News stories have focused on the past law enforcement experience of the woman who stopped the killer. Calling her a “security guard”, reports made it appear Jeanne Assam was part of “an elite group with special abilities and opportunities most people lack; this could not be further from the truth. Able-bodied people of both genders across a wide spectrum of age have the capacity and should have the un-infringed, God-given right to defend innocent life”, Clymer said.
Reports mentioned she was “trained, licensed, and background-checked”. That is true of millions of Americans with concealed weapons permits. The media spin suggested this heroic woman was not simply an armed citizen exercising basic 2nd amendment rights.
“Others interested in defending their lives against ever-increasing rampage shootings would do well to ignore the implication that they could never do what she did, that they should never dare to consider defending their lives and the lives of others,” Clymer added.
The Constitution Party encourages all Americans to look critically at the example of this tragedy that could have been worse, and note the effort to disarm Americans with more gun laws has not resulted in fewer shootings. “On the contrary, schools and other places where people are prevented from carrying self-defense weapons have become easy targets for gunmen. It’s time Americans stop and think about where all these shootings are taking place…certainly not at police stations or places where there would be armed resistance”, said Clymer.
The Constitution Party calls on all Americans to acknowledge that guns don’t kill people, criminals do…and in so doing stand up for the 2nd Amendment.