Feb. 27, 2014

An Open Letter to the Legislative Tyrants of Connecticut.

Sent via email.

To the CT State Senators And Representatives who voted Yes on "An Act Concerning Gun Violence Prevention and Children's Safety, also known as Public Law 13-3 or Connecticut Senate Bill No. 1160," 3 April 2013.

And, yes, I said tyrants. You bought it, in the form of the woefully misnamed "Act Concerning Gun Violence Prevention and Children's Safety," you own it, you are certainly -- if you get your way -- going to pay for it like it or not, so you might as well own up to it. Look in the mirror. That's what a tyrant in the 21st Century looks like. Mather Byles, the Massachusetts Loyalist of the Revolutionary period -- our first civil war -- once famously asked, "Which is better - to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away or by three thousand tyrants one mile away?" The Founders themselves were just as suspicious of unrestrained democracy as a means of tyranny. This is why they gave us a republic of limited powers and the rule of law, to limit those who would misuse democracy to create a new tyranny. Yet that is precisely what you've done. Own it.

You know, in Greek mythology Cassandra, the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy, was given the gift of prophecy. She could see exactly what was going to happen to her endangered city. Yet she was also cursed with the burden of never being believed. The frustration was said to have driven her mad. Never have I come closer to understanding Cassandra's curse than these past months.

Before I sat down to write this letter, recognizing that it is one of the most important and even dangerous letters (to me) I have ever written, I asked my friend Paul to pray for me. He responded thusly:

May God grant you inspiration, diplomacy, empathy, service-fullness, compassion and resourcefulness. May God grant you His calmness, centeredness, clarity, creativity, strength and courage as you craft your letter. Above all, may God help you in maintaining an open heart in all that you project outward and a remembrance of who we all are. We are all His sons and daughters.

Indeed we are all His sons and daughters, and I am grateful for Paul's prayerful reminder to me of Who I serve. However, you may conclude from my opening that I am struggling with that "diplomacy" part because frankly, you people have provoked in me and many of your fellow Connecticut citizens a real Old Testament anger at your felonious arrogance of power combined as it is with an overwhelming ignorance of the people you seek to rule. You have mistaken your fellow citizens for timid collectivist souls such as yourselves and you are very much in error -- and that error may get a whole lot of people killed, and soon. Sheer stupidity and waste of human life always makes me angry, so you will find me a trifle lean on diplomacy in this letter. The occasion calls for plain-speaking and brutal honesty.

It is not that I haven't been trying to warn y'all, like Cassandra, about the danger your conduct has placed us all in. On 20 April of last year, right after you passed your Intolerable Act, I spoke on the steps of your state house and said this:

"An unconstitutional law is void." It has no effect. So says American Jurisprudence, the standard legal text. And that's been upheld by centuries of American law. An unconstitutional law is VOID. Now that is certainly true. But the tricky part is how do we make that point when the local, state and federal executive and legislative branches as well as the courts are in the hands of the domestic enemies of the Constitution. Everyone who is currently trying to take away your right to arms starts out by saying "I support the 2nd Amendment." Let me tell you a home truth that we know down in Alabama -- Barack Obama supports the 2nd Amendment just about as much as Adolf Hitler appreciated Jewish culture, or Joseph Stalin believed in individual liberty. Believe what politicians do, not what they say. Because the lie is the attendant of every evil. . .

Before this year no one thought that other firearms and related items would ever be banned -- but they were, they have been. No one thought that the authorities of your state would pass laws making criminals out of the previously law-abiding -- but they did. If they catch you violating their unconstitutional laws, they will -- when they please -- send armed men to work their will upon you. And people -- innocent of any crime save the one these tyrants created -- will die resisting them.

And later on, I said this:

No one wants a new civil war (except, apparently, the anti-constitutional tyrants who passed these laws and their media toadies who cheer them on) but one is staring us in the face. Let me repeat that, a civil war is staring us in the face. To think otherwise is to whistle past the graveyard of our own history. We must, if we wish to avoid armed conflict, get across this message to the collectivists who have declared their appetites for our liberty, our property and our lives -- WHEN DEMOCRACY TURNS TO TYRANNY, THE ARMED CITIZENRY STILL GETS TO VOTE.

Now just like King George, such people will not care, nor modify their behavior, by what you say, no matter how loudly or in what numbers you say it. They will only pay attention to what you DO. So defy them. Resist their laws. Evade them. Smuggle in what they command you not to have. Only by our ACTS will they be impressed. Then, if they mean to have a civil war, they will at least have been informed of the unintended consequences of their tyrannical actions. Again I say -- Defy. Resist. Evade. Smuggle. If you wish to stay free and to pass down that freedom to your children's children you can do no less than to become the lawbreakers that they have unconstitutionally made of you. Accept that fact. Embrace it. And resolve to be the very best, most successful lawbreakers you can be. (1)

The thing is, apparently someone was listening. As Bob Owens reports: Botched registration leads to confiscation in Connecticut.

Gun owners sat on their butts and refused to register either arms or magazines, all but daring the state to do anything about it. Of the estimated 375,000-400,000 firearms deemed “assault weapons” by the state, more than 325,000 remain undocumented. Only about 50,000 were registered for future confiscation. The requirement to register standard capacity magazines was laughed at even louder by the citizenry; just 38,000 (less than 2 percent) of an estimated 2 million standard capacity magazines holding greater than ten rounds of ammunition were registered with the state. (2)

But Ed Jacovino of the Journal Inquirer reports that those who tried to obey your law and didn't get in under the arbitrary deadline are now going to be punished for their good faith efforts. (3) They are getting letters like this one:

Jacovino reports that the arrogant Mike Lawlor now purports to read minds.

Once people realize they can’t keep the guns and magazines, “they’re going to get rid of them,” Michael P. Lawlor, the undersecretary for criminal justice policy and planning to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, says.

Madame Lawlor knows all, sees all. (Graphic courtesy of David Codrea.)

Jacovino continues:

And while the state won’t immediately prosecute those who missed the deadline, it isn’t ignoring that information, either.

The rifle and magazine declarations will be included in information given to police responding to a certain address. “This would be a factor in deciding how to respond to different situations,” Lawlor says.

In other words, "we'll send a Connecticut state police SWAT team to your door if you are reporting a home invasion -- not to arrest the perpetrator attacking you and your family but to arrest and, if necessary, kill you."

Jacovino reports that Ron Pinciaro, executive director of the Connecticut Coalition Against Gun Violence, is equally bloody minded.

(Pinciaro) says the administration’s approach of sending a warning letter is suitable. "It’s fair. They’re giving them fair warning that they’re in noncompliance,” he says. Pinciaro adds that he’s glad a new bill wasn’t necessary — lawmakers were considering changes that would have extended the deadline beyond Jan. 4. “Now we’re saying, ‘OK, we gave them eight months, what else can we do for them now?’ That’s not the way any other law works,” he says.

Including, I might add, the ironclad Law of Unintended Consequences, but more of that in a minute.

Now I have communicated with both of these two true believers in citizen disarmament in the recent past. Pinciaro was the recipient of one of my Toys for Totalitarians awards as was your governor (see My letter to Governor Malloy here.) (4)

As for Lawlor, we've had a right brisk exchange of views -- all one way unless you count the major case investigation against me by the Connecticut state police that he's contributing to. I've sent him no less than four open letters since he began threatening Connecticut firearm owners on your behalf (see here, here, here and here.) (5) (6) (7) (8) I have even sent a request for his KGB file to the Russian Embassy here.(9)

That is not to say that the building crisis over your Intolerable Act has not yet claimed some "victims," of a sort, from your own ranks. I noted with interest this story from the Courant: "Senate Leader Not Seeking Reelection." (10)

The departure of Williams comes at a time of major change in leadership at the state Capitol. Senate Republican leader John McKinney of Fairfield is running for governor and serving in his last year in the Senate. House Republican leader Larry Cafero of Norwalk is widely expected to be in his final year at the Capitol, but he has not yet made any official announcements. Other legislators, including Rep. Livvy Floren of Greenwich, Sen. Gary LeBeau of East Windsor, and Sen. Jason Welch of Bristol, are not seeking reelection.

Rats leaving a sinking ship, no doubt. Not that it will have any effect upon their future prosecution under the Law of Unintended Consequences. Only one thing, which is entirely within your control, might. But more of that in a minute as well.

On your behalf, in order to save yourselves from yourselves, I have even written "An Open Letter to the Men and Women of the Connecticut State Police," telling them that they are NOT the enemy of the firearms owners of your state unless they choose to be.   (11)  A crucial passage from that letter bears quoting to you.

Now let's examine those numbers in the Courant story. You know the size of the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection. Wikipedia tells us that "CSP currently has approximately 1,248 troopers, and is headquartered in Middletown, Connecticut. It is responsible for protecting the Governor of Connecticut, Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut, and their families." There are but 1,212 email addresses listed on the state website to which this email is going, which presumably includes everyone including secretaries, receptionists, file clerks, technicians, etc. Now, how many shooters for raid parties you may find among that one thousand, two hundred and forty eight that Wikipedia cites, or whatever number will be on the payroll when something stupid happens, only you know for sure. I'll let you do the counting. They are daunting odds in any case, and as you will see, they get more daunting as we go down this road that Malloy and Company have arranged for you. (By the way, don't forget to subtract those on the Green Zone protective details, for your political masters will certainly see their survival as your mission number one.) So, how many folks would your superiors be interested in seeing you work their will upon? And of these, how many will fight regardless of cost?

Let's assume that there are 100,000 non-compliant owners of military pattern semi-automatic rifles in your state. I think it is a larger number but 100,000 has a nice round ring to it. Let us then apply the rule of three percent to that number -- not to the entire population of your state, not even to the number of firearm owners, but just to that much smaller demonstrated number of resistors. That leaves you with at least 3,000 men and women who will shoot you if you try to enforce this intolerable act upon them. Of course you will have to come prepared to shoot them. That's a given. They know this. So please understand: THEY. WILL. SHOOT. YOU. (In what they believe is righteous self defense.) Now, if any of them follow Bill Clinton's rules of engagement and utilize the principles of 4th Generation Warfare, after the first shots are fired by your raid parties, they will not be home when you come to call. These people will be targeting, according to the 4GW that many of them learned while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, the war makers who sent you. This gets back to that "when democracy turns to tyranny, the armed citizenry still gets to vote." One ballot, or bullet, at a time.

As I told the state troopers, this is all hypothetical for now, dependent upon your own appetites for bloodshed in furtherance of your tyrannical will. If you require explanation of Fourth Generation Warfare in an American context, please consult the introduction to my upcoming novel Absolved: "Tyrants beware. 4th Generation Warfare: How the next civil war will be fought." (12)

Of Absolved, I wrote:

I can only hope that readers will take my own “useful dire warning” more seriously. If one does ultimately break out, I will be as guilty of fomenting it as Tom Clancy was guilty of 9/11 -- which is to say not at all. It is precisely what I am trying to avoid. . .

And so it is with this letter. Again, I am trying to avoid bloodshed. The problem is that you "tyrannical morons" (as I called you in my speech last April with less Christian charity than I might have mustered) seem intent, at least from the statements of your creature Mike "KGB" Lawlor and those of Ron Pinciaro (to whom you seem to be dancing to his tune) are intent on working your will upon Connecticut citizens at the muzzle of a state-owned firearm -- a few thousand state-owned firearms to be precise.

Look. You screwed up. You allowed yourselves to be stampeded in the wake of an incident of incomparable evil into attacking precisely the wrong people -- law abiding Connecticut gun owners -- by true believers in citizen disarmament like Lawlor and Pinciaro with their own agenda, state power over the individual. Of course some of you fall into that same category but the rest of you are what most politicians across the country are: well-intentioned people (Lenin called such folks "useful idiots"), responsive to the last constituent phone call you received yet barely literate in your own state's history and the Constitution you took an oath to preserve. This comes at a time when the country is dividing along the lines of the answer to the question, "does the government serve the people, or do the people serve the government?"

We are at a crossroads. You, in the arrogance of your power and your ignorance of the people you seek to dominate are extrapolating from your own cowardice -- you believe that just because the government orders these folks to knuckle under that they will do so BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT YOU WOULD DO. You mistake them, and your mistake is, in the fullness of time, going to get people killed. And who do you think these people who you victimize -- these people who you will have state agents seek to round up and kill -- who do you think they are going to blame for that? It doesn't take Madame Lawlor and his crystal ball to predict that such people -- victimized by their own state authorities in an unconstitutional law that likely will be found to be null and void anyway -- will blame the people who sent the killers. Which is to say, you. (13)

This is deadly serious stuff, this foray into an undiscovered country that you have so blithely entered upon, like blind men and women tap dancing in a minefield you scarcely comprehend. Fully eighty-five percent of the people you targeted with the law -- the people that YOU AND YOU ALONE made into lawbreakers -- have just told you by their noncompliance to take your unconstitutional law and stick it where the sun don't shine. Does that not tell you ANYTHING? These people are ARMED. They are familiar with the finer points of marksmanship. They are principled in a way that perhaps only the Founders would understand -- at the risk of their own lives. So what part of "Oh, HELL no" don't you understand? You have been playing with titanic forces. You are going to send armed agents of the state to their doors to work your collective and collectivist will upon THEM? You have unintentionally sown the wind and if things go predictably south you will reap the whirlwind.

BUT IT IS WITHIN YOUR POWER TO REVERSE. You own the weather machine, as it were. I'm not asking you to repeal the law, although that makes perfect sense to me. No, I realize that too much of your ego, your own false vision of omnipotence is wrapped up in it to do THAT. What I am asking you to do -- no, what I am BEGGING you to do -- is to use your power to suspend the enforcement of that Intolerable Act at least until it is ruled constitutional or not by the United States Supreme Court. "An unconstitutional law is null and void." Do you really wish to risk death and destruction upon innocent people -- upon us all -- on a bet against the odds? Is your appetite for your own citizens' liberty, property and lives that insatiable? Or now, as the likely unintended consequences of your actions have been directly explained to you, are you willing to reconsider the menu choices? What will your political fortunes be when the first shots are exchanged over this? When the first innocents are killed in carrying out your will? What will your arrogance, your ignorance, your insufferable pride be worth to you then? What will it be worth to any of us? Starting a bloody civil war seems an odd way to avoid "violence against children."

Praying that my advice fares better than Cassandra's, I am, sincerely,

Mike Vanderboegh

Smuggler and alleged leader of a merry band of Three Percenters

PO Box 926

Pinson AL 35126

(1) "Defy. Resist. Evade. Smuggle." Speech, 20 April 2013 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkjLlZu9uno

(2) Botched registration leads to confiscation in Connecticut. http://bearingarms.com/botched-registration-leads-to-confiscation-in-connecticut/?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

(3) One More Chance for Gun Owners  http://www.journalinquirer.com/politics_and_government/one-more-chance-for-gun-owners/article_2d8f816a-9d93-11e3-b18e-0019bb2963f4.html

(4) Story first, interview after. A CT reporter goes all Red Queen on me in the Toys for Totalitarians story. My letter to Governor Malloy. http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2013/12/story-first-interview-after-ct-reporter.html

(5) An Open Letter to Michael Lawlor, the CT Governor's Hatchet Man on Firearms Confiscation. "How's your KGB file hangin', Mike?" http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2014/02/an-open-letter-to-michael-lawlor-ct.html

(6)My Second Open Letter to Mike Lawlor -- On "Nightcrawlers" and Treason Played for Laughs. We've already established that you are willing to sell out your country. Now we're just haggling about the price. http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2014/02/my-second-open-letter-to-mike-lawlor-on.html

(7) My Third Open Letter to Mike Lawlor: The Depraved Indifference of the "Prison Commissar" & The Subversive Uses of the "Wretched of the Earth." http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2014/02/my-third-open-letter-to-mike-lawlor.html

(8) My Fourth Open Letter to Mike Lawlor: Of anti-Catholic jihads and spitting on your heritage. (Hedgehogs, foxes and wolverines. Oh my!) http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2014/02/my-fourth-open-letter-to-mike-lawlor-of.html

(9) My letter to the Russian Embassy regarding Mike Lawlor. http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2014/02/my-letter-to-russian-embassy-regarding.html

(10) Senate Leader Not Seeking Reelection. http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-williams-leaving-0227-20140226,0,7073250.story

(11) An Open Letter to the Men and Women of the Connecticut State Police: You are NOT the enemy (UNLESS YOU CHOOSE TO BE.) http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2014/02/an-open-letter-to-men-and-women-of.html

(12) Tyrants beware. 4th Generation Warfare: How the next civil war will be fought. http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2013/04/tyrants-beware-4th-generation-warfare.html

(13) A Sipsey Street Public Service Announcement: The Connecticut Tyrants List, voluntarily subscribed by the participants on 3 April 2013. http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-sipsey-street-public-service.html

http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2014/02/open-letter-to-legislative-tyrants-of.html