Media Circus: The Book Burning That Never Was

In my first post on this topic, I said that what we have here is a tale of two provocations. I also said that they are not equal in weight. I covered the first and weightier provocation--that of building a new mosque at Ground Zero--in my first post. The counter-provocation, if counter it was, came when the media created a circus around an obscure Florida Church.


Pastor Jones, who preaches at rural church of 50 members, let the media know that he intended to burn copies of the Koran on the ninth anniversary of 9/11. The mainstream media took the bait. And Pastor Jones sat back and counted off his fifteen minutes of fame. In watching the predictable reactions, one has to wonder who was taking whom for a ride to the old fishing hole.

In the more sedate newspapers here in flyover country, such a story only gets a few lines in the National Round-Up' --if it even gets that. And gets it only if the event actually occurs. It is a curiousity, not news. But the national media, ever eager to jump on anything that confirms its prejudices about ordinary Americans, worked itself into a frenzy over the bookburnings that never were. And after he had gotten a sufficient amount of attention--including interviews with international leaders, a call from the President of the United States, and a free trip to New York to act out his vision of himself as a high-level negotiator--Pastor Jones announced that the Koran burning was off. Apparently, he had gotten the attention he was looking for. Pastor Jones-1, MSM-0.


Apparently, too, the MSM succeeded in creating moral equivilency between the construction of an expensive mosque-cum-community center at Ground Zero and an obscure Florida pastor from the hinterlands threatening to burn books. This is unsurprising, because the media "elites" no longer ask if a story will "play in Peoria"; they ask if the story confirms their prejudices about the American heartland. This story did just that, allowing them to portray ordinary Americans as narrow-minded bigots that are all eager to be caught on film burning books.

For the record, most Americans are opposed to the wanton destruction of burning books, flags, or anything else. In the heartland especially, a certain polite rectitude unknown inside the beltway creates a certain restraint, and people that live in the towns of flyover country tend to be friendly to one another and the stranger within their gates. Most people in this country are not salivating to hate their neighbors; they are too busy working to fulfill their dreams, to feed their families, to educate their children, to make of their communities and towns good and pleasant places to live.

That the media was willing to fan the very tiny spark of one unimportant pastor of a small church of 50 people threatening to burn a Koran in rural Florida is telling. It is telling in the story that is not and never was. The story that the MSM was dying to find. The story of hundreds of thousands of Americans ready to take up the torch and burn Korans in great bonfires across the country. There were 50 people. And some others on the internet, not really engaged, who tried to fan the flames of the book-pyre that never was.

Also telling is the story of the reaction of Muslim clerics and leaders worldwide. The threat of rioting in the streets and violence against Americans and Christians, if the Koran was burned. In an interview with CNN, for example, he Imam of the Ground Zero mosque, Feisal Rauf had this to say:

O'BRIEN: Then why is it hard to back up and say, and now that we've done it, let's undo it, let's just say we won't. Let's pick another spot that's been offered?

RAUF: As I just mentioned, our national security now hinges on how we negotiate this, how we speak about it, and what we do. It is important for us now to raise the bar on our conversation--

O'BRIEN: What's the risk? When you say "national security," what's the risk?

RAUF: As I mentioned, because if we move, that means the radicals have shaped the discourse. The radicals will shape the discourse on both sides. And those of us who are moderates on both sides -- you see Soledad, the battle front is not between Muslims and non-Muslims . . . The radicals actually feed off each other. And in some kind of existential way, need each other. And the more that the radicals are able to control the discourse on one side, it strengthens the radicals on the other side and vice versa. We have to turn this around.
(CNN Transcripts, Larry King Live, Sept. 08, 2010, retrieved Sept. 20, 2010 from http://archives.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1009/08/lkl.01.html).


The point here, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, is two-fold, according to Rauf. First, is the implied threat that if Rauf actually has the sensitivity to American values, manners and mores--that is if he respects the values of the country in which he lives--and moves the mosque to a more politic location in lower Manhattan, then Muslims somewhere will make some violent move against the United States. This is the threat of an act of war, placing our national security at risk. It is an veiled threat that if not made by the Imam, was at least delivered by the Imam. If the Imam knows of some substantial threat to the United States, then it is his duty as a citizen, on pain of treason, to deliver that knowledge to the government of the United States.

Secondly, Rauf is making the same claim of moral equivalency that the MSM invented for this drama. He is claiming that Pastor Jones and his misguided congregation of 50 people is morally equivalent to radical Islamists. Certainly threatening to burn the Koran is an imprudent act, and in my mind a morally offensive act of wanton destruction. But it is not a crime. It is self-expression protected in the US by the First Amendment. Jones and his church members are hardly on the same moral plane as radical Islamists who turn passenger jets into instruments of wholesale murder, strap bombs to the bodies of children to kill civilians, and have attacked the United States Navy in peacetime at a neutral port.

This game of moral equivilancy is the stock and trade of those who play the victim to get what they want. Rauf has planned an act of extreme insensitivity towards the families of those murdered on 9/11, a provocative act toward the people of New York City and the United States, who were attacked that day, but by this claim he wishes to convince us that he is the moderate by making Pastor Jones and his wingnuts the moral equivilant of trained killers who are well financed by various Islamists polities and organizations. Please! As Mark Twain used to tell us: "Saying so don't make it so."

The planned mosque is a great provocation to the people of the United States, and by his protests that he can't change its location without violence from unnamed but very real organizations in the Moslem world, Rauf is engaging in moral blackmail. And more. He not only wants to force the issue of the mosque upon us, he wants us to give our moral sanction to it in the name of tolerance. But blackmail is wrong: it is force, and a violation of another's liberty. And the threat of violence against innocent Americans and their allies the world over, people who may or may not hold any opinion about this mosque, is purely evil. To tolerate such evil in order to placate terrorists is injustice. No matter how much he protests otherwise, Rauf is not moderate, he is a spokesman for terrorism. He deserves no hearing, no sanction from us.

And Pastor Jones? He is a wiley operator who saw the opportunity for a brief moment of martyrdom by editorial, and took it. He understood well the old saying that "no publicity is bad publicity." He deserves to fade back into obscurity, as he will when the performance is over. The Koran-burning that never was became a media circus, a small provocation that was supposed to be used by the media to incite division and violence. It didn't. It wasn't even news.

Our Hearts He Broke: The Provocation of the Mosque

"Our hearts he broke, he burned the Torah,

burned the Torah,

Ash and smoke and crushed Menorah,

crushed Menorah.

Antiochus, Antiochus."

--Hayo, Haya

In the time of Hadrian, Emperor of Rome, the study and practice

of Torah were forbidden. The teachers of Israel said: "How survive

without the Tree of Life? Why live when the soul is dead?" And so

they taught and learned and in doing so, Israel's ten

martyrs were taken and doomed. . . Hanniniah ben Teriadon

was wrapped in a Scroll of the Law and placed on a pyre

of green brushwood and burned alive. As he was so burned,

he opened his mouth and cried: "I see! I see!"

His students asked: "Master, what do you see?" And he answered:

"I see the parchment burning while the letters of the Law soar upward . . ."

What we have here is a story of provocation and counter-provocation. They are not equal in weight.

The original provocation--the announcement that a mosque-cum-community center will be built at Ground Zero--is explosive. The site has become to Americans a sacred place. A place to which the entire people of the United States look to honor those who were murdered by fire on that day so awful that it instantly became known by its numbers: 9-11. Most of the bodies of the dead were never recovered, having been vaporized in the extreme heat of burning jet fuel, or pulverized into elements and compounds by the weight of the buildings coming down upon their heads. There is no cemetary to go to, no place where the mortal remains of the murdered have been laid to rest. There is only a hole in the ground and a reflecting pool at the place where they died. A place that is on some of the most expensive real estate in the civilized world. They are in some ineffable way there, where their lives were deliberately taken, in the name of Islam; and when we go there or hearken to them in our hearts that were broken that day, we are standing in that sacred space.

That those buildings, full of civilians who went there to work in the service of their own individual lives, goals and happiness, were attacked and destoyed in the name of Islam, is not in dispute. The men who planned the hijacking of the airplanes--and the murder of everyone on them as well--and the men who duly flew them into the Twin Towers, all did so in the name of jihad--holy war--a duty for all who have submitted to the god of Islam in the name of Mohammed, the Prophet of Islam. That there are those Moslems who do not accept such behavior in their own names is real enough, but very few of them have publically abjured the murder of the "infidel" in the name of jihad and in the name of Islam. And even if the vast majority of Muslims worldwide had stood up against the jihadists of that day, and even if they had not celebrated the murder of innocents from 'Arabia to Zanzibar', they would have so stood against these murders out of shame for what was done in the name of Islam,and in their own names.

It is simply unbelievable that Imam Faisel Rauf and his wife do not understand how absolutely inappropriate is the construction of a mosque anywhere near the sacred place where innocents were deliberately killed in the name of Islam. If this Imam is indeed a moderate Muslim who understands American culture, then he knows. And his wife knows, too.

It would be like erecting a shrine to German culture at Auschwitz. It is true that every German did not condone the actions of the German National Socialist Party, and nevertheless the murder of European Jews was done in their name. Most German individuals are not responsible for those murders, but nevertheless they have the sensitivity to understand the pain such a building would bring to the survivors and their families. They have manners. And of course, Germans the world over do not dance in the streets to cheer on the Nazis, nor do they regularly gather in large groups to shout "Death to the Jews." A majority of Muslims the world over have and do. And the Imam and his wife dwell in America and could stand to develop some sensitivity toward American values, manners and mores. That they refuse to do so casts great doubt upon their stated motives.

In a very real sense, Ground Zero represents to Americans the burning of sacred text. The sacred text that is written large upon the lives of ordinary Americans, who in going about their daily work were in that moment pursuing happiness. They were the living text of the American dream. And in the next moment, the jet fuel brought upon their heads by the jihadist hijackers turned them and the work of their hands into an auto-da-fe for Islam. When the buildings came down and the ashes poured through the streets of Manhattan, we all watched the sacred letters of their lives rise toward the heavens in the form of a myriad of papers wafting into the perfectly clear blue Tuesday morning sky.

The mosque at that sacred place, the place where the living texts of American lives were vaporized, crushed and burned, all in the name of Islam, is a very large provocation. It is made even larger by the habit Islamists have had for centuries, the habit of erecting their mosques on the crushed ruins of places of worship the world over; the ruins of the peoples that Islam has conquered by the sword.

It should stop here. It should stop now. If there is a moderate Islam--and we are waiting to see evidence of it in the actions of the supposed moderate Imam Rauf--then such triumphalism should end now. At Ground Zero, that sacred place.

What a Long, Strange Monday it Was . . .

Talk about a bad Monday . . .

Yesterday, I started my 15 minutes a day 12 step writing regime, and I even have a sponsor.
I had already had a conversation with the family about mom needing to finish her graduate school career. At 50, it's getting ridiculous! And that means starting the dissertation. Because 90% of dissertations that are not finished were never started.

And yesterday I did several hours of housework in order to get some order back after First Day Rosh Hashannah (no work done), Second Day Rosh Hashannah (no work done), followed immediately by Saturday--an all-day seminar (no work done). I was feeling proud of myself after I put in my 15 minutes of writing that expanded to 30, followed by phone calls and getting a necessary form filled out for the Catron County Assessor--for the Ranch!!!--and a trip to the Albuquerque Uptown Borders store to purchase Strunk and White. (That's The Elements of Style, and oldie but goodie!)

I was feeling on top of things. I was doing my life pretty well indeed.
Or so I thought . . .

I picked up the Rasta Jew from Cross Country practice at about 6, and when we pulled up, I asked him to bring the dogs in. Shayna was already inside, but Lily and Umbrae were in the dog run.

Now usually, the Rasta Jew waits a while before bringing them in. He generally needs to inhabit his room alone for a while, and reassure himself that he is part of his space. So, looking forward to sitting down to read a book about a city girl turned farmer, I went about putting away some clothes in the closet. And was suddenly surrounded by two very excited, wild and crazy dogs. (I usually make them all sit in the dog run before I open the gate, and again at the door before I let them in. I do this to avoid what happened next. And when Lily jumped up on the bed, I ordered her down. And she jumped straight over the footboard and right onto Shayna.

We had a repeat of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in my bedroom.
Except that the Rasta Jew had to dry fire his pellet rifle next to Lily's head to break her away from Shayna. So it was a Monday evening trip to the Vet Urgent Care with Shayna, who had multiple abraisions and wounds on her left foreleg and chest. She was more serverely injured than I thought by looking at her.
Over three hundred dollars later, I was ready to take Lily in for immediate euthanasia.
Rehoming her seems irresponsible since I'd just be passing the problem on to someone else. . .

The Urgent Care Vet gave us the name of an animal behaviorist, and the Engineering Rancher Geek, who had initially said we should euthanize Lily today, spent 45 minutes on the phone with one of the researchers. I filled out a very long questionnaire, as did the ERG. To see this person will be quite expensive, but that expense includes a full medical evaluation and lab tests. If this leads to a definitive answer that either something can be done or it cannot, it could give us peace with whatever decision we make.

In the meantime, upon return from the vet last night, a groggy Shayna went into her crate and has refused to come out in nearly 24 hours. I cannot give her the antibiotics--the priciest item on the estimate for her care--but I think if I can just entice her to eat one of the liver-flavored pain tablets, she will come out and eat, drink and take the antibiotics. And take a short, halting walk outside . . . this is the longest Shayna-on-strike we've had since we brought her home.

Whatever hard choices we make in the next few days, for sure we cannot let this happen to poor Shayna again.

Oy. I don't like Mondays. At least, not Mondays like this!

Murder in the First Degree: Remembering 9-11on 9-12

Yesterday, I was quiet. I did not write of it.


I remembered that day of ash and smoke, come out of a clear blue sky. It came out of the blue, but it came not by accident. It came by the intention of evil men. Murder by malice aforthought.

And the wound is still raw now, nine years later. I still feel ripped open, vulnerable and I still experience the red fire of anger behind my eyes. ( I who witnessed it by television from a thousand miles and more away).

And I wonder at those who want me, want us to curb our anger, to worry about what those who did this think about me, about us. About US.

A person who does this-- who brings buildings down upon the heads of the people of a city--who plans ahead the murder of innocents and innocence with such extravagence;
A person who does this deserves no thought, no consideration, no concern. A person who does this deserves nothing but to have destruction rained down upon him. He has chosen to become not a human being and has forfeited any consideration from human beings.

And those who would use the liberties vouchsafed for them by the Constitution in order to bring about the destruction of the cities and people who protect that Constitution, even to bring about the destruction of the Constitution itself, deserve no protection, no consideration and no concern. They deserve nothing from the people who look to the Constitution for the protection of rights.

Let us not forget who did this and why they did it. Anger is an appropriate response to such an intrusion upon the rights of the innocent people who were murdered on 9/11. Hatred of the evil deed and of those who deliberately took over 3,000 lives, and of those who supported it, cheered it, and approved of it, is a proper response to the murder of innocents.

This was no accident. It was no tragedy--no consequence of the exegencies of nature, no coming together of random chances. It was murder in the first degree.

Catching Up: A Bitter-Sweet New Year

Catching Up: Circumstances and holidays, Jewish and American, have all come together to create a blog-cation of nearly two weeks at Ragamuffin House and Ragamuffin Ranch. This is the second catching up post today! This week, I am beginning a regular writing routine, in order to be more faithful to blogging on all kinds of topics, not just politics.

Rosh Hashanah 5771:


Shanah Tovah--as the graphic says: A Good Year--for a High Holy Days season that kind of snuck up on us, beginning in the same week as Labor Day.
Our lunar Jewish calendar is intercalated with the Western solar calendar, so that seven times in 19 years, we add a leap month to keep the holy times and seasons in line with the actual seasons. Sometimes leap month comes every two years, and sometimes, like this year, it comes in the third year. When that happens, the second year comes with holy days that are very early according to the solar calendar.

So Rosh Hashanah 5771--the Jewish New Year--snuck up on me, and we almost missed Elul, the month of preparation. Or did we? So much is happening in the world and in our lives, and during Elul, I think our hearts and minds were busy with changes--some welcome, some unexpected, and some necessary to the times and seasons.


On Wednesday evening we ate a very good dinner complete with round cinnamon-raison Challah, dipped our apples in honey--for a sweet year, and then went to synagogue to welcome the new year with our beloved (if at times exasperating) fellow Jews. We hoped and prayed for a good and prosperous year for ourselves and the whole House of Israel. May it be so! May we make it so!

On Thursday and Friday at the first and second day morning services, we performed the Mitzvah--the commandment--of hearing the Shofar, the wild calling of the Ram's Horn, to awaken us, to warn us, to strengthen us for what is coming: the good, the bad and the ugly.

Given the signs of the times, I think the bitter-sweet mood among our fellow Jews is indeed timely. Economic hard times are only beginning, and tends to cause the anti-Semites to come pouring out of the woodwork. Israel is threatened, and war with Iran may not be avoidable, which brings a large number of our people under the gun. And the new Exodus from Europe--Jews leaving countries where they are warned not to tell who they are, or wear a kippah, or a star, for fear of retribution from the growing Muslim majorities in Sweden, in France, only because they exist as Jews. The world grows harder and more troubled.

And yet, we remind ourselves at our solemn and yet hopeful assembly:

". . . how unyielding is the will of our people Israel! After the long nights, after the days and years when our ashes blackened the sky, Israel endures, hearts still turned to love, souls still turned to life.
So day and night, early and late, we still rejoice in the study of Torah, we will walk by the light of Mitzvot. They are our life and the length of our days. Praised be the Source of Life, and Love, and Israel, our people!"
--CCAR and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (1978): Sha'arei T'shuvah: The New Union Prayer Book for the Days of Awe (p. 25-26).

We have survived worse, and come back to flourishing life. The dry bones are clothed in new flesh. And at those times when the outside world becomes hard and troubled, we must summon within us the resolve to keep the flame alive within our own hearts, and within the hearts of our homes and our synagogues, in order to succor the strength and resolve to come through this latest great gate in history with strength and honor and love of life.

And may this year indeed be a good year for me, and you, and the whole House of Israel, and the whole world. For Rosh Hashanah commemorates and celebrates the birth of the world, and the goodness of life.

Catching Up: Labor Day at the Ranch

Catching Up: It has been almost two weeks since I posted, and during this busy summer, I have not been posting often anyway. So much to do, so little time! I will be posting a few blog entries to catch up, and then establish a writing routine so that new entries will be posted at least 3-4 times a week.

Labor Day at the Ranch: We spent much of the Labor Day weekend at the ranch. We moved some boxes down there, and took the dogs for the first time. Transporting three dogs three hours each way was an adventure, but we managed it well, I believe. We did some soil samples and marked our fields, and now will be planning various projects to be done once the High Holy Days are done.

Because the former owners are still in residence, finishing up their various commitments, we have been staying in the cabin each time. I love the front porch and the view across our little valley. And the back faces the rimrock, part of the Colorado Plateau formations.








The Rasta-Jew makes friends with Cowboy J.'s horses. They will be moving with him, but in the meantime, they enjoy a peaceful early fall morning at the watering tank.

The Rasta-Jew loves the ranch and finds much to do there. On Labor Day weekend, he repaired the drive shaft of an old Jeep truck, put in transmission fluid, and replaced the battery and cables. He forgot brake fluid though, so he was driving in low gear and stopping by coasting on level ground.

Sister Sarah the burro shelters in the shade near the stock tank by the gate. She comes with the ranch, because moving would be hard on her. She's getting on in years and has a bad hip. But she loves us already, and comes up in the mornings to get apples and petting. And she is still a good animal guard.

The Engineering Rancher Geek had some lessons in Tractor 101, and immediately began grading the road and the driveway, including the area in front of the barn.

While he was doing that, I was sifting the soil samples and getting them ready to ship out to NMSU, where the State Extension Soil Labs are located. They will be tested because we will need to add amendments this fall in order to be ready to plant in the spring.Lots to do! LOTS!

We were hoping to go the ranch this weekend, too, but it would have been just to much with Rosh Hashanah Thursday and Friday. Shabbat was strange as I had a Dissertation Seminar (a PhinisheD support group for this the loneliest time of the process) late Friday afternoon and all day Saturday. Lots of discussion, seeing old friends at different stages of their research and writing.

Appleseed Shoot: Former Cook, Now Becoming a Rifleman

"I went to an RWVA Appleseed Shoot.

I was there for the adventure. I was there for the rebirth . . .

Those who can't shoot, have to cook.

Former Cook now becoming a Rifleman.

It feels GOOD . . .

And my mission in life is pass on the Tradition,

the one that started on April 19, 1775.

Want to be a Rifleman? I will show you how! Just ask . . .

This past weekend, the Rasta Jew and I went to an Appleseed Shoot. The Appleseed Project is sponsored by the Revolutionary War Veterans Association, and has the goal of turning one million ordinary citizens into Riflemen, and to teach them the story of April 19, 1775--the day our nation was born in blood, founded on the skills of the American riflemen who chased the greatest army in the world from Concord back to Boston.

Picture: The flags of our founders posted and the Red Flag signifying a hot firing line at the NRA-Wittington Center, near Raton New Mexico. (Taken August 28, 2010).

The Rasta Jew and I drove up to the beautiful NRA Wittington Center, the largest and most comprehensive shooting range in the United States, on Friday after school. We took with us two borrowed 22 rifles. Our own rifles take much more expensive ammo, and we would go through 500 rounds each over the course of the Appleseed Shoot.

Picture: Bronze Memorial to former NRA President Charleton "from my cold, dead fingers" Heston as "The Scout" at the the Santa Fe Trail Marker inside Wittington Center, near the Canadian River, outside of Raton, NM (Taken August 29, 2010).

During the Shoot, our home-away-from home was firing line, which was situated 25 yards in front of the first target line. Over the course of two very full days, we learned the fundamentals of the Rifleman skills: safety, the six steps for taking a shot, the Natural Point of Aim (NPOA), and how to shoot prone, sitting, kneeling and standing. The Rasta Jew was a natural, but I improved only slowly, changing rifles twice to solve a few physical problems.

Picture: The Rasta Jew lays out the sleeping bags on the firing line. These will serve as ground cover for shooting prone, sitting and kneeling. (Taken August 28, 2010).

Shooting from the prone position is the most stable, and done right, is both relaxed and beautiful. Sitting is the next most stable, because there is still much bone in contact with the ground. Kneeling is next, and standing is least stable. However, when shooting in real situation--such as hunting--there is no bench, and one may need to shoot in a variety of positions to hit the target. Therefore, a good marksman can shoot accurately in a variety of positions.

Picture: On the second day, they brought out some bigger guns. Here the Rasta Jew shoots an M1-Garand (a classic rifle) at metal targets 200 yards away. Another participant is sighting for him, to let him know how to adjust his aim. (Taken: August 29, 2010).

Appleseed Shoots are intense: the instruction is rapid and then there are numerous drills each day on the Army Qualifying Test (AQT), during which shooters shoot from all the positions, are timed and have to make magazine changes and position transitions.

During the breaks and the lunch periods, the teachers take turns telling the story of April 19, 1775. The stories are intended to remind us that those people then thought about us now, and given the choice between slavery and the bullet box, wanted to leave us a third choice: the ballot box. They are intended to get citizens involved in that legacy.

Picture: Navy Chief Bill "don't call me sir" Black teaches the Rasta Jew to fire an AR-15 on the AQT. The Rasta Jew qualified as a Marksman, but did not earn the coveted Rifleman patch this time. (Taken: August 29, 2010).

Despite the intensity--the pace was like drinking from a firehose--Appleseed was a great deal of fun. The teachers, who are all volunteers, spent a great deal of time helping each of us one-on-one, and met us where we were at with respect to our skills. Everyone who perservered, went away as a better shot than when they started. As a novice on a rifle, I began with scores in the twenties on the AQT, but by the end I scored a 96, 14 points away from Marksman.

Picture: The teachers for this shoot. The orange hat means teacher-in-training; the red hats are teachers, and the green hat is the Shoot Boss. (Taken: August 29, 2010).

"I am a former cook, becoming a Rifleman. And it feels GOOD!"
And I brought away some insight into the minds of our forefathers who fought the Revolution as well. They were always talking about "posterity." They were always thinking about us. But we are not thinking about our posterity. And when Gill "Bluefeather" (the Shoot Boss) said this, I said out loud, "Maybe that's our problem!"
And one of the other teachers said, "I think you have the secret."
John Adams said this to us:

"Well, Posterity. You will never know what it cost us to preserve your freedom. I only hope that you will make good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it."

The point of Appleseed is not only to make us a nation of Riflemen again, in the Spirit of April 19, 1775, the day our country was born in blood, but also to get us to remember the spirit in which our forefathers preserved our liberty, thinking always down the years to us. And to get us to think about our posterity in the far future with the same care, so that we, too, preserve our liberty. And it was their hope, and should be ours, that their third choice--the ballot box--will be sufficient to preserve it.

Shooting--the only sport endorsed by the Founders--

an American Tradition since April 19, 1775.