The Arizona shootings, the Second Amendment, and Aaron Zelman

By Chuck Baldwin

The shootings of at least 18 people (6 killed, at least 12 wounded) in Tucson, Arizona, has predictably ignited a firestorm of anti-gun, anti-right, and anti-anything not "liberal" diatribes from the typical big government talking heads in Washington, D.C., and New York City. Anti-freedom congressmen railed for more gun control, including resurrecting Bill Clinton's so-called Assault Weapons ban, and other laws restricting "high capacity" magazines (the assailant reportedly used a Glock 9mm in the attack).

If the newly elected Republican majority in the US House of Representatives has a political death wish for 2012, they will stupidly facilitate more gun control legislation. If there is anything the vast majority of grassroots Americans (from just about anywhere) are absolutely sick and tired of, it is gun control legislation. The vast majority of Americans firmly support the right of the people to keep and bear arms, the shooting in Tucson notwithstanding. In fact, since the hastily passed Assault Weapons ban expired, a majority of Americans has been truly educated regarding the intrinsic protection that personal firearms possession affords. Thanks to notable researchers such as John Lott, most Americans understand the veracity of writer Robert Heinlein's sagacious counsel: "An armed society is a polite society." So true.

I invite readers to study Lott's recent column regarding the Arizona shootings at:

http://tinyurl.com/4939z9c

I just spoke last week to a packed house here in my home State of Montana (with more than 500 people in attendance who came out on a Tuesday night in sub-zero temperatures to hear me), and I would estimate that twenty percent of them (or more) were carrying their own personal side arms. I would pity the poor idiot who would have attempted to duplicate Loughner's attack in that assemblage. Obviously, guns in the hands of the citizenry are far and away more of a deterrent to violent crime than a contributor to it.

Then there was the attempt by liberal Democrats to try to connect the shooter, Jared Loughner, to the Tea Party movement and anything else "conservative." Turns out, Loughner was much more infatuated with Karl Marx than he was with Ron Paul. Plus, apparently, police discovered a makeshift satanic shrine in Loughner's back yard, which, I am sure, is disappointing to Morris Dees, who loves to paint Christians as "extremists" and "dangerous militia members."

See:

http://tinyurl.com/4zecamg

So, was Loughner a lunatic? No doubt, there are some crazy people out there. Or was it something else?

The European Union (EU) Times posted a report on January 9, 2011, that calls the shooting an "assassination." And according to the report, the target was not Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, but rather Federal Judge John Roll. (Roll died in the Tucson attack.)

Roll, the Times reports, had issued a preliminary ruling against the Obama administration's use of an Executive Order (EO) to confiscate targeted monies of the American citizenry — in much the same way that an EO by President Franklin D. Roosevelt was used to confiscate the American people's privately held gold in 1933.

To the many constitutionalists I have spoken with who are familiar with the judge's record, Roll was truly one of the "good guys." When it came to preserving the protections afforded the people of these States united by upholding the US Constitution, Judge Roll seemed to shine.

See the EU Times report at:

http://tinyurl.com/279rpj6

Let me hasten to interject at this point that this report reads like reports I've read before by someone called Sorcha Faal. My friend and trusted researcher, Joel Skousen, suggests that Faal (whoever he or she is) is unreliable at best, and may be a disinformation agent at worst. I personally do not know. What I do know is that Judge Roll is dead, and we lost one of the best federal judges on the bench.

Do I believe that highly-positioned rogue elements within central governments (any national government) could or would use MK-Ultra-style techniques to assassinate unwanted or problem people (to them)? I think one would have to be naïve to NOT believe that such dastardly deeds are possible. Was Loughner a "Manchurian Candidate" then? Obviously, we will never know.

Speaking of losing good men: freedom lovers lost a good ally and friend recently with the passing of Aaron Zelman, who was the Executive Director of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO). Zelman was a tireless defender of the Second Amendment. I did not know him personally (my loss), but he and I communicated occasionally via email. He told me he was an avid reader of my columns, and I was certainly one of his biggest fans. He died relatively young at only age 64.

Here is the JPFO web site address:

http://jpfo.org/

So, America lost two good men recently: Federal Judge John Roll and JPFO Executive Director Aaron Zelman. I trust many of us will step up to the plate and take our place on the firing line.

© Chuck Baldwin