AHSA in Kentucky: A Followup

On May 21st I wrote a post commenting on Tom Eblen's Kentucky.com's article which praised the American Hunters & Shooters Association for its willingness to compromise on gun rights and denouncing the NRA as shill of the Republican party. Since that time, Elbin has been peppered with e-mail from angry NRA members and gun rights supporters. They said, much as I did, that the AHSA was the real front organization - formed in recent years by supporters of gun control.

Elbin responded to these e-mails with a followup article, and I give him credit for recognizing that there was so much opposition to his article and for showing the other side of the argument. That being said, I did not see anything in his response that quelled the concerns that I personally had with his previous post. There is no mention of Gov. Richardson, Rep. Boren, Sen. Webb, or any of the other numerous Democrats who are rated highly and endorsed by the NRA. He does not address how the Democratic establishment's attempts at every type of gun control, registration, restriction, and confiscation alienated NRA members over the years and made them more sympathetic to the right. Although he recognizes that many gun-rights advocates claim the AHSA is a front group, he does not offer up any of the solid evidence that can easily be found with a cursory search of the internet.

Elbin continues to preach compromise on gun-rights issues, but offers no comparison to compromising on other rights - such as speech, religion, or search and seizure. He even goes as far to state that the NRA's staunch support of the 2nd amendment is the reason that some jurisdictions have become such blatant gun grabbers:

The no-compromise crowd has kept law enforcement agencies from having some tools they need to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and crazy people. And that has led to some over-reaching, such as when police in New Orleans illegally seized hundreds of guns after Hurricane Katrina.

This is total lunacy. As I stated in my previous post, the NRA has made great inroads in the past few decades of expanding gun-rights for the law abiding and protecting against overreaching cities and states that have had their eyes on gun confiscation long before Katrina. Contrary to Elbin's supposition, without the intervention of NRA lobbyists in Washington and the NRA legal defense fund in the courtroom, gun confiscation in places like New Orleans would have happened years earlier. The idea that somehow capitulating to every gun control proposal dreamt up by the Brady Campaign and the Violence Policy Center (VPC) would somehow protect our gun rights and not embolden opponents is absurd.

To further illustrate this point, let's look at the afermath of Katrina. It was the NRA who fought to restore the rights and property of those citizens who had been stripped of their legally owned firearms. Not a peep was heard from Brady or the VPC to return these gun and sue the city. It was also the NRA that fought for a Federal law to prohibit the confiscation of legally owned arms in the event of a Federal disaster. Over 13 states have since followed suit.

Elbin is just another figure in long line of journalists and politicians preaching "common sense" solutions to gun control. The problem is that every compromise of our freedoms that they suggest will have no measurable effect on gun violence. Many of those who are asking for small pieces of our freedom have openly advocated total confiscation. Add that to the lessons learned from places like the UK and Austraila, where gun control progressed to registration and eventual confiscation and it is easy to see why 2nd amendment advocates are so passionate. According to Elbin, if we stand up for our Constitutional rights it is our own fault when opponents attempt full scale gun grabs such as in New Orleans. But history tells us if we do not stand up there will be nothing left to fight for. I will continue to take my chances standing tall.