Crossposted from the Internet Mailing List ONLINE REPORT TO THE FIREARMS
OWNERS COALITION which reprints various columns and news tidbits from
Neal Knox. (who has just moved up from second vice-president to first
vice-president of the NRA)
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                    Political Foolishness
                     By NEAL KNOX
WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 20) -- Until I heard Dennis Fusaro trash
House Speaker Newt Gingrich at Saturday's Gunstock rally in
Detroit, I didn't believe that the leadership of Gun Owners of
America had lost their collective minds.
Fusaro heads state and local matters for GOA, and I had heard
that, in addition to well-known NRA-bashing (perhaps to enhance
their fund-raising), he and they were adopting some
incomprehensible and counter-productive political positions.
Speaker Gingrich took immense flak for causing the promised repeal
vote on the semi-auto and magazine ban; if it hadn't been for
him, there would have been no Waco hearings, and Freshman Bob
Barr wouldn't be chairman of the House Firearms Task Force.
To treat Gingrich as an enemy is plain stupid.  Yet Saturday
Fusaro blasted him for "supporting gun control" which he defined
as "anything that increases government power."
The most damning thing I had previously read about GOA's new
course was a "Trip Report" by Northern Californian gun rights
activist Peter Nesbitt concerning his attendance at a GOA
Advanced Legislative Project Management April 29.
Retired Senator H.L. "Bill" Richardson, who founded GOA and Gun
Owners of California, keynoted the seminar, with Fusaro as the
principal instructor.
Nesbitt said they were told:  "Instead of mobilizing our people
in electing and assisting 'pro-gun' politicians, we should be
busy inflicting Political Pain.  By becoming too involved with
the politician, becoming his friend, or accepting appointments
to his various committees and panels, we lose our effectiveness
as a  grassroots activist. ....  He then controls  US, instead of
us controlling HIM."
Nesbitt concluded:  "The main theme in this course is exercising
our POWER against the politician through  CONFRONTATIONAL
techniques.
  "The techniques taught in this seminar indicate that we should
be able to get ANY elected official to vote our way irregardless
[sic] of who put him in  office. ....
 "Much of the course content is very controversial, as it goes
against  the grain of what we as gun-owners, have been taught
over the last few years."
No kidding!
This theology of "Only" Confrontational Politics is a
prescription for disaster.  Certainly we should "punish our
foes," and I have delighted in dis-electing many anti-gunners;
but it is equally critical to "support our friends."
Support of non-incumbent pro-gunners was the sole reason Sen.
Bill Richardson originally set up Gun Owners of California in
1975; I was a member of his board of directors.
Bill probably would never have been elected if some gun activists
in his district -- particularly Jim Watkins and Tom Wentz -- had
taken the position that GOA/GOC now prescribes.  They formed the
San Gabriel Valley Gun Lobby and worked hard to elect him and
three other hopefuls who did sterling work for gun owners.  (One
of them was U.S. Rep. Carlos Moorhead who is retiring this year
after an exemplary career.)
After Bill was re-elected enough times to become Senate Majority
Leader, Watkins and Wentz felt that he began playing Republican
politics so hard he sometimes forgot to dance with those
gunowners "what brung him."
Though they never treated him as an enemy -- Fusaro's
prescription for politicians who backslide -- they quit working
for him.  And when Bill realized he had lost his base of support,
he retired.
Saturday Fusaro described GOA as the "junkyard dogs" of the gun
movement; but their tactics are causing them to be treated more
like skunks.
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