“[O]n a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building,” an Op-Ed column by retired diplomat and editorial board member Dan Simpson in the Toledo Blade titled “The disarming of America” demanded.  “All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm.”

OK, but that’s from 2007. Why bring it up now?

I was actually searching the old version of my blog for key words to bolster arguments for a new post (something many of us with history in the fight do all the time) and came across a blistering criticism by ostensible Second Amendment/NRA “loyalist” bloggers that friend and colleague Mike Vanderboegh and I called “prags” (self-styled “pragmatists”). They were going ballistic on Mike for being a “principles freak” and “making us all look bad” because of his frank talk about unintended consequences from pushing die-hard gun owners too far (as opposed to employing their preferred tactic of writing polite letters to rabid gun-grabbers as a the most “effective” way to win support from fence-sitters).

So, while the prags were out there scolding us for First Amendment-protected predictions that never crossed the threshold of being actionable threats, this former armed government official (whom I dubbed “Homer Simpson’s dumber brother”) was using a major mainstream newspaper to issue a demand for the government to initiate a nationwide civil war against all citizens who would not surrender their Second Amendment-articulated right to keep and bear arms. Noting the death toll any attempt to do that would rack up, I leave it to the readers to decide if candid warnings are truly inappropriate.

Especially since the piece, written by a member of the paper’s editorial board as opposed to “written by members of the public … to ensure they present diverse opinions on topics of importance to readers,” was presented as an “op-ed.” The Blade is all about gun-grabbing, with editors wringing their hands and second-guessing successful DGUs (defensive gun uses) because:

“[W]e’re not sure that store owners and employees defending themselves with deadly force is an absolute good. [I]t must be remembered that robbery is not a capital crime, and it’s only by chance that no one other than the would-be robbers was injured. We fear the result might instead be that bad guys will get bigger guns and be quicker to pull the trigger.”

Back to Vanderboegh for a second, his acknowledgement of “Bill Clinton’s rules of engagement” might be something these DSM (Duranty/Streicher Media) cowards might want to consider before advocating that the government send troops to disarm the rest of us. No, the “prags” did not appreciate that one bit.

And back to Simpson, who also demanded, among other things:

• “Hunters would be able to deposit their hunting weapons in a centrally located arsenal, heavily guarded, from which they would be able to withdraw them each hunting season upon presentation of a valid hunting license.” [Democrat Fudds who throw other gun owners under the bus take note. Your turn in the barrel will come if the swindlers you support have their way.]
• “All antique or interesting non-hunting weapons would be required to be delivered to a local or regional museum, also to be under strict 24-hour-a-day guard.”
• “Any gun sold would be delivered immediately by the dealer to the nearest arsenal or the museum, not to the buyer.”
• “[F]airly quickly there would begin to be gun-swept, gun-free areas where there should be no firearms… On the streets it would be a question of stop-and-search of anyone, even grandma with her walker, with the same penalties for ‘carrying’.”

And oblivious to the (deliberately) open borders that allowed tens of millions of illegal aliens to embed themselves to the benefit of “pathway to citizenship” Democrats and cheap labor Republicans, Simpson asserted smuggling guns from Mexico and Canada “would constitute a problem for American immigration authorities and the U.S. Coast Guard, but not an insurmountable one over time.” That both countries impose draconian “gun control” edicts that don’t work was apparently not worth mentioning.

It’s important to note that Simpson’s creed was written in response to the Virginia Tech massacre, that is, killings enabled in a “gun-free zone”  that, according to university officials, was “a very sound policy.” How many more deaths he thought his delusional total disarmament policy would make inevitable was left unsaid.

The point of rehashing all this now is to remind younger gun owners that citizen disarmament and its resultant monopoly of violence, repackaged by the prohibitionists now as “commonsense gun safety laws,” has always been the goal.

Of course they’re talking about taking your guns, and any protestation to the contrary is simply a calculated lie crafted to give talking points to fanatics and keep the uninformed from looking at the documented history of the modern “gun control” movement, where its founders admitted they would do things in increments with the ultimate objective of total bans.

Mike is no longer with us, and Homer Simpson’s dumber brother (still taking shots at us years after his first plan didn’t work) has gone on to his reward. Those of us with long memories due to long involvement won’t be around forever.

You’ll note a lot of the links embedded in this article loaded slowly because the original websites have either taken them down or no longer exist and you can only access them via the Internet Archive/WaybackMachine. That’s a resource I publicize (and donate) to because it’s the only place where you can still read our original Operation Fast and Furious reporting.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” philosopher George Santayana wrote. Never forget the past, because given the opportunity, by force or by fraud, that’s exactly what the collectivist violence monopolists, emulating the worst tyrants in history, want us to do.

“Who controls the past, controls the future,” George Orwell observed in his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. “Who controls the present, controls the past.”

“Commonsense gun safety” is a fraud, used by the evil to manipulate “useful idiots” and to hide their real plans. It’s important that Second Amendment promoters counter that lie by knowing the past, educating others, and never forgetting that text, history, and tradition supports an abused citizenry to remind would-be tyrants they will never surrender the power to respond in ways the “pragmatists” would not approve.

WE WILL NOT DISARM.

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.