It's a brave new world out there...

Yesterday our beloved retired pastor called and asked if we'd like to meet he and his lovely wife for church, then afterwards go to dinner (our church offers a Saturday evening service in addition to two Sunday morning services).

We had a wonderful time. They took us to a deluxe hamburger restaurant called Red Robin, and as you can imagine on a Saturday evening it was packed. We had about a 15 minute wait before they were able to seat us. The service was great, the food was delicious, and the atmosphere was upbeat and family-friendly, with lots of children.

With the happy, cheerful crowds in the restaurant, an odd and disturbing thought passed through my mind as the hostess seated us: it would be a perfect place for some nut-job to conduct a mass shooting. And for once, I wasn't packing heat.

So it was very interesting to note something that happened late in the meal. Several young men (late 20s, early 30s) were walking the floor of the restaurant. They were smiling and helpful. While they didn't serve food, they gladly fetched condiments or extra napkins or anything else diners might require. One stopped at our table to see if we needed anything. And around their waists they all wore high-tech belts containing walkie-talkies and sidearms.

I mentioned this to our pastor's wife, and she said a lot of places are now doing this -- having visibly-armed security officers present, particularly during high-traffic hours.

While it's sad that so many restaurants feel the need to have these security officers present, I for one was glad to see them. There's only one way to stop an insane gunman, and that's a sane gunman.

Yep, it's a brave new world out there...

Tyranny! Coming soon to a country near you.

My jaw dropped when I read this story about a father who was arrested, strip-searched, and hauled in for questioning after his four-year-old daughter drew a picture of a gun at school. Another version of the story is found here.

This took place in Canada. Perhaps some of my Canadian readers can offer some insight about why such a heavy-handed approach was taken?

Beware of owner

A reader sent me an email as follows: "I took a picture of a Christmas sign put up in our neighborhood... the 2nd amendment is alive and well in our area!"

Shot gun, hand gun, or pit bull? Hmmmm... decisions decisions...

"Horns that can be used if needed."

A reader named Jennifer left a comment on my Peace on Earth, Now Buy a Gun post. I thought her analogy was so excellent I wanted to highlight it here.

I try and share how important gun ownership is by using my simple life as an example. My sheep have horns and as they are a breed that has four horns on occasion, look rather menacing. Yet,they eat greens and an occasional snack of fruit from me. But those horns relay a very serious sign...LEAVE ME ALONE, I just want to eat and live my simple life without being attacked by a mountain lion, coyote, or bobcat.

How silly folks are saying they would never own a gun. I count on someone assuming we have the ability to defend ourselves if they are thinking about robbing the farm. I count on the rural mentality as we live too far from rapid response of law enforcement, and therefore are our own line of defense. In reality though, we live like the sheep, simple on a farm, providing as much as we can for ourselves all the while thanking our Creator, with horns that can be used if needed.

I think that says it all, don't you? Many progressives misunderstand why Americans are so enamored of gun ownership, but Jennifer nails it. Most of us are peace-loving, law-abiding citizens who simply refuse to relinquish the one Right (and notice how I capitalized "Right") that protects us from foreign and domestic enemies.

To see what would happen if that Right were taken away, here are the comments of another reader named Able, who lives in England:

Excellent post, as per usual. If you want to see what happens when all (legal) guns are removed from a country have a look here in the country that used to be Great Britain. Rapes, Assaults, murders (and shootings) occurring in increasing numbers year after year. I agree with some of the comments on the original post that part is due to the change in demographics (the radical divisions caused by the influx of massive numbers of those with cultures antagonistic to the native one - the statistics show a similar thing in the USA, do they not?) but part is the changes encouraged by those in power (the lack of trust in the judiciary and police caused by how the law is selectively enforced).

You have a base protection in your written constitution (we have the Magna Carta and Bill of Rights but they have been over-written and ignored for centuries) and you should both be proud and defend it. After all it is those who are weak, old, infirm who need the equality afforded by a firearm - and I'm glad to see (whatever the reason) that so many take the chance to exercise that right.

If there are any who disagree, ask them to visit a British city and walk there alone at night - they'll soon see just how important having not only the right to self defence, but the tools to allow those most vulnerable to do so, is (both things we here have appeared to, and have, lost).

And that, my friends, is the purpose of the Second Amendment in a nutshell. Thank you to both Jennifer and Able for sharing their views.

Firearms refresher course

1. "Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not." ~Thomas Jefferson

2. Those who trade liberty for security have neither. ~John Adams

3. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.

4. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.

5. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.

6. Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.

7. You only have the rights you are willing to fight for.

8. Know guns, know peace, know safety. No guns, no peace, no safety.

9. You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.

10. Assault is a behavior, not a device.

11. 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.

12. The United States Constitution (c) 1791. All Rights Reserved.

13. The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.

14. What part of 'shall not be infringed' do you NOT understand?

15. Guns have only two enemies; rust and politicians.

16. When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves.

17. The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.

Magnificent words by Charlton Heston

Winning the Culture War
By Charlton Heston

Note: This is the text of Charlton Heston's speech on "Winning the cultural war" Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2002, at Ames Courtroom, Austin Hall at Harvard Law School. This was sponsored by the Harvard Law School Forum, a student organization at Harvard Law School.

I remember my son when he was five, explaining to his kindergarten class what his father did for a living. "My Daddy," he said, "pretends to be people."

There have been quite a few of them. Prophets from the Old and New Testaments, a couple of Christian saints, generals of various nationalities and different centuries, several kings, three American presidents, a French cardinal and two geniuses, including Michelangelo. If you want the ceiling re-painted, I'll do my best.

It's just that there always seems to be a lot of different fellows up here. I'm never sure which one of them gets to talk. Right now, I guess I'm the guy.

As I pondered our visit tonight, it struck me: If my Creator gave me the gift to connect you with the hearts and minds of those great men, then I want to use that same gift now to re-connect you with your own sense of liberty … your own freedom of thought … your own compass for what is right.

Dedicating the memorial at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said of America, "We are now engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether this nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure." Those words are true again … I believe that we are again engaged in a great civil war, a cultural war that's about to hijack your birthright to think and say what lives in your heart.

I fear you no longer trust the pulsing lifeblood of liberty inside you … the stuff that made this country rise from wilderness into the miracle that it is.

Let me back up a little. About a year ago, I became president of the National Rifle Association, which protects the right to keep and bear arms. I ran for office, I was elected and now I serve … I serve as a moving target for the media who've called me everything from "ridiculous" and "duped" to a "brain-injured, senile, crazy old man." I know, I'm pretty old … but I sure Lord ain't senile.

As I have stood in the crosshairs of those who target Second Amendment freedoms, I've realized that firearms are not the only issue.

No, it's much, much bigger than that.

I've come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain acceptable thoughts and speech are mandated.

For example, I marched for civil rights with Dr. King in 1963 – long before Hollywood found it fashionable. But when I told an audience last year that white pride is just as valid as black pride or red pride or anyone else's pride, they called me a racist.

I've worked with brilliantly talented homosexuals all my life. But, when I told an audience that gay rights should extend no further than your rights or my rights, I was called a homophobe.

I served in World War II against the Axis powers. But during a speech, when I drew an analogy between singling out innocent Jews and singling out innocent gun owners, I was called an anti-Semite.

Everyone I know knows I would never raise a closed fist against my country. But, when I asked an audience to oppose this cultural persecution, I was compared to Timothy McVeigh.

From Time magazine to friends and colleagues, they're essentially saying, "Chuck, how dare you speak your mind like that? You are using language not authorized for public consumption!"

But, I am not afraid. If Americans believed in political correctness, we'd still be King George's boys – subjects bound to the British crown.

In his book, "The End of Sanity," Martin Gross writes that "blatantly irrational behavior is rapidly being established as the norm in almost every area of human endeavor. There seem to be new customs, new rules, new anti-intellectual theories regularly foisted on us from every direction. Underneath, the nation is roiling. Americans know something without a name is undermining the country, turning the mind mushy when it comes to separating truth from falsehood and right from wrong. And, they don't like it."

Let me read a few examples.

At Antioch college in Ohio, young men seeking intimacy with a coed must get verbal permission at each step of the process from kissing to petting to final copulation … all clearly spelled out in a printed college directive.

In New Jersey, despite the death of several patients nationwide who had been infected by dentists who had concealed their AIDs, the state commissioner announced that health providers who are HIV positive need not … need not … tell their patients that they are infected.

At William and Mary, students tried to change the name of the school team "The Tribe" because it was supposedly insulting to local Indians, only to learn that authentic Virginia chiefs truly like the name.

In San Francisco, city fathers passed an ordinance protecting the rights of transvestites to cross-dress on the job, and for transsexuals to have separate toilet facilities while undergoing sex-change surgery.

In New York City, kids who don't speak a word of Spanish have been placed in bilingual classes to learn their three R's in Spanish solely because their last names sound Hispanic.

At the University of Pennsylvania, in a state where thousands died at Gettysburg opposing slavery, the president of that college officially set up segregated dormitory space for black students.

Yeah, I know. That's out of bounds now. Dr. King said "negroes." Jimmy Baldwin and most of us on the march said "black." But it's a no-no now.

For me, hyphenated identities are awkward … particularly "Native-American." I'm a Native American, for God's sake. I also happen to be a blood-initiated brother of the Miniconjou Sioux. On my wife's side, my grandson is a 13th generation native American … with the capital letter on "American."

Finally, just last month … David Howard, head of the Washington, D.C., Office of Public Advocate, used the word "niggardly" while talking to colleagues about budgetary matters. Of course, "niggardly" means stingy or scanty. But, within days, Howard was forced to publicly apologize and resign.

As columnist Tony Snow wrote: "David Howard got fired because some people in public employ were morons who (a) didn't know the meaning of 'niggardly,' (b) didn't know how to use a dictionary to discover the meaning and (c) actually demanded that he apologize for their ignorance."

What does all this mean? It means that telling us what to think has evolved into telling us what to say, so telling us what to do can't be far behind.

Before you claim to be a champion of free thought, tell me: Why did political correctness originate on America's campuses? And why do you continue to tolerate it?

Why do you, who're supposed to debate ideas, surrender to their suppression?

Let's be honest. Who here thinks your professors can say what they really believe?

That scares me to death. It should scare you too, that the superstition of political correctness rules the halls of reason.

You are the best and the brightest. You, here in the fertile cradle of American academia, here in the castle of learning on the Charles River, you are the cream. But I submit that you, and your counterparts across the land, are the most socially conformed and politically silenced generation since Concord Bridge. And as long as you validate that … and abide it … you are – by your grandfathers' standards – cowards.

Here's another example. Right now, at more than one major university, Second Amendment scholars and researchers are being told to shut up about their findings or they'll lose their jobs. Why? Because their research findings would undermine big-city mayor's pending lawsuits that seek to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from firearm manufacturers.

I don't care what you think about guns. But if you are not shocked at that, I am shocked at you. Who will guard the raw material of unfettered ideas, if not you? Democracy is dialogue!

Who will defend the core value of academia, if you supposed soldiers of free thought and expression lay down your arms and plead, "Don't shoot me."

If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist.

If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you sexist.

If you think critically about a denomination, it does not make you anti-religion.

If you accept but don't celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe.

Don't let America's universities continue to serve as incubators for this rampant epidemic of new McCarthyism.

But what can you do? How can anyone prevail against such pervasive social subjugation? The answer's been here all along.

I learned it 36 years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., standing with Dr. Martin Luther King and 200,000 people.

You simply … disobey.

Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely.

But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We disobey social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom.

I learned the awesome power of disobedience from Dr. King … who learned it from Gandhi, and Thoreau, and Jesus and every other great man who led those in the right against those with the might.

Disobedience is in our DNA. We feel innate kinship with that disobedient spirit that tossed tea into Boston Harbor, that sent Thoreau to jail, that refused to sit in the back of the bus, that protested a war in Vietnam.

In that same spirit, I am asking you to disavow cultural correctness with massive disobedience of rogue authority, social directives and onerous laws that weaken personal freedom.

But be careful … it hurts. Disobedience demands that you put yourself at risk. Dr. King stood on lots of balconies.

You must be willing to be humiliated … to endure the modem-day equivalent of the police dogs at Montgomery and the water cannons at Selma.

You must be willing to experience discomfort. I'm not complaining, but my own decades of social activism have left their mark on me.

Let me tell you a story. A few years back I heard about a rapper named Ice-T who was selling a CD called "Cop Killer" celebrating ambushing and murdering police officers. It was being marketed by none other than Time/Warner, the biggest entertainment conglomerate in the world. Police across the country were outraged. Rightfully so – at least one had been murdered. But Time/Warner was stonewalling because the CD was a cash cow for them, and the media were tiptoeing around it because the rapper was black.

I heard Time/Warner had a stockholders meeting scheduled in Beverly Hills. I owned some shares at the time, so I decided to attend. What I did there was against the advice of my family and colleagues. I asked for the floor. To a hushed room of a thousand average American stockholders, I simply read the full lyrics of "Cop Killer" – every vicious, vulgar, instructional word.

"I got my 12-gauge sawed-off. I got my headlights turned off. I'm about to bust some shots off. I'm about to dust some cops off …" It got worse, a lot worse. I won't read the rest of it to you. But trust me, the room was a sea of shocked, frozen, blanched faces. The Time/Warner executives squirmed in their chairs and stared at their shoes. They hated me for that.

Then, I delivered another volley of sick lyrics brimming with racist filth, where Ice-T fantasizes about sodomizing two 12-year-old nieces of Al and Tipper Gore. "She pushed her butt against my …"

Well, I won't do to you here what I did to them. Let's just say I left the room in echoing silence. When I read the lyrics to the waiting press corps, one of them said "We can't print that." "I know," I replied, "but Time/Warner's selling it."

Two months later, Time/Warner terminated Ice-T's contract. I'll never be offered another film by Warner, or get a good review from Time magazine. But disobedience means you must be willing to act, not just talk.

When a mugger sues his elderly victim for defending herself … jam the switchboard of the district attorney's office.

When your university is pressured to lower standards until 80 percent of the students graduate with honors … choke the halls of the board of regents.

When an 8-year-old boy pecks a girl's cheek on the playground and gets hauled into court for sexual harassment … march on that school and block its doorways. When someone you elected is seduced by political power and betrays you … petition them, oust them, banish them. When Time magazine's cover portrays millennium nuts as deranged, crazy Christians holding a cross as it did last month … boycott their magazine and the products it advertises.

So that this nation may long endure, I urge you to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the great disobediences of history that freed exiles, founded religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in arms and a few great men, by God's grace, built this country.

If Dr. King were here, I think he would agree.

Thank you.