California Dreamin ... part 3

Speech to Golden Gate United NRA
Members' Council --- April 8, 1999
(Full-color event report)

By Tanya K. Metaksa
© Tanya K. Metaksa & Associates, 1999

Many of you know that besides coming to visit all my many friends up, down, East, and West of the I-5 corridor, I visit that part of my family, which has recently moved to California. Many people have assumed that George and I have moved to this state. But at the present time we are BI-coastal. Only Rip Van Winkle doesn’t know that gun owners in this state are under siege. The attacks are relentless. As I wrote in a recent WorldNetDaily article, our opponents don’t get tired of the fight, they actually relish it and wake up each morning thinking of new ways to deny us our rights. And right now they have the upper hand, which makes it even more exciting for them. So what are we to do? I have heard many different suggestions: Some have told me that as soon as any new gun control laws become effective they are moving to Nevada, Idaho --- pick a state. But since laws migrate across state lines, those of you moving, had better be prepared to fight in that state too. Some like Rip Van Winkle have just awakened from a long winter’s nap. Former NRA member Tony Gavrilis did and here is part of what he wrote: My neighbor, whom I convinced to join last year, just showed me the ATTENTION: SKS Owners insert in the April edition of the American Rifleman. I flipped! I realize we have a bunch of ignor"anus"es in the state government, but for crying out loud, how did this happen? I thought the NRA had a little clout in this matter? Now, my Russian SKS, of which I have not fired in a year because I did not know if it was really legal or not, has to be retro-fitted with the useless 10 round fixed magazine. My wife has a daycare, and I have to use a trigger lock in the locked case, store the bullets separately, and now get rid of my 30 round magazine. Why am I being punished for crimes I did not commit? How many times in the past thirty plus years of being a grassroots activist fighting for freedom, have I heard that question. Why me? What did I do? We ARE being punished for crimes no one in this room committed. We ARE being punished because we enjoy the shooting sports, hunting, or just want the peace of mind that comes with having a firearm for self-defense. But others in the past have also been punished for things over which they had no control. One story begins half-a-century ago as Dr. Ossian Sweet moved his family into a two story home on Detroit’s East Side. Dr. Sweet graduated from Howard University medical school and then went to Europe where he worked with Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie. After his move into a Detroit working-class neighborhood he was greeted by The Waterworks Park Improvement Association, a group that had recently driven another black doctor from his Detroit home. This group gathered a mob of hundreds of people across the street from Dr. Sweet’s home, which became increasingly ugly. To keep the peace the Detroit police cordoned off the street for three blocks and stationed themselves between the mob and Dr. Sweet. But that wasn’t enough. One day the mob began storming the house and throwing rocks. As Dr. Sweet ran upstairs to get a better and safer view he grabbed a gun. Shortly thereafter Dr. Sweet’s brother, Henry, drove up to the house. The unruly crowd began yelling, “Here’s niggers! Get them! Get them! They broke Henry’s car window showering him in glass shards. As Dr. Sweet ran downstairs and opened the door to let Henry into the house, a shot rang out. After the smoke cleared, one person in the mob was dead and another injured. The police then stormed the Sweet house and arrested everyone inside, charging them all with murder. The case went before Judge Frank Murphy. The famous Clarence Darrow arrived in Detroit to handle the defense. After a seven-week trial and three days of jury deliberations, Judge Murphy declared a mistrial. The prosecutors then decided to retry only Henry, who had admitted firing his gun. Darrow’s defense of Henry was elegant. He argued that although Henry may have fired the fatal shot, it was justified and in self-defense. The second all white jury deliberated only three hours before finding the defendant “not guilty.” However, the residents of the state of Michigan now live under the consequences of this “racial incident.” It was the Klu Klux Klan that lobbied for the passage of Michigan’s first gun control law. The Public Acts of 1927 required the citizens acquire “purchase permits” after mandatory inspections prior to acquiring a gun. And the carrying of firearms was at the discretion of county “gun boards.” Dr. Sweet and his family had committed the crime of being black. A crime for which there was no defense, but self-defense. Four years ago right here in Fresno, California an elderly couple, Earl and Lena Tiller were in their home enjoying each other’s company in the twilight of their lives. Little did they know that they were soon to meet Robert Rutledge, a recently paroled two-time loser. Police say that Rutledge had already committed as many as twenty home invasions throughout Northern California since his parole. He was the target of a CrimeWatch Alert, but police couldn't find him. Sacramento authorities said his crimes included the vicious beatings of one woman, aged fifty-three, and two men, one seventy-eight and the other eighty-three years old. In Fresno, Rutledge invaded the home of Earl and Lena Tiller. Both in their eighties, the Tillers seemed to be easy pickings. With one exception. Since the 1940s, Earl Tiller was a member of the NRA. Rutledge burst in and began wrestling with Earl. Lena ran down the hall. Rutledge caught her and dragged her back to the bedroom. Meanwhile, Earl was retrieving his handgun. When Rutledge threw his wife on the bed, Earl opened fire, hitting Rutledge four times. He departed the Tiller home through the bedroom window. When he sought treatment for gun shot wounds, the hospital called the police. This story has two important points for Tony and all the other sleeping gunowners. First, the year before the attack on the Tiller home, NRA helped make "Three Strikes You're Out" the law in California. Rutledge already had two strikes; the Tiller attack was at least his third. Rutledge did more than run into a law with teeth. He ran into a law with fangs, courtesy of Earl Tiller's NRA. A law that keeps innocent people from being punished by vicious criminals. Second point. An elderly man on a fixed income, Earl bought the Davis .380 for home protection because it was all he could afford. The gun he used to stop Rutledge is called a "Saturday Night Special" by those who want it banned. Third. Earl and Lena Tiller had committed the crime of being old. A crime for which there is no defense, but self-defense. Some people right here in California are calling for “reasonable gun laws.” Well, so-called "reasonable" gun control didn't protect the Tiller family. In fact, "reasonable" gun control didn't do anything. A reasonable gun did everything. Well, Tony the NRA hand in hand with its Member Councils has been working diligently since you let your NRA membership lapse. So let’s ask Tony and the other Rip Van Winkle’s some questions? Did you vote in the 1998 election? Have you ever written to your Assemblyman or State Senator? And have you ever attended a public hearing when your rights were being threatened? If the answers are no to any one of these questions, then it wasn’t the NRA who let you down. It wasn’t your local NRA Members’ Council who let you down. You did it yourself. Yet there is activism and there is SUPER ACTIVISM. Everyone here in this room is an activist; otherwise you wouldn’t be here. But there are some among you who are what I call SUPER ACTIVISTS and should have a big S on their shirt, just like the one Superman wears. So I would like to award several people their Super Activist medal. [A number of NRA members were given Super Activist buttons] Well, Tony rejoin the NRA and join your local Members Council. There you will find others who share your views and with whom you will fight those ignoramuses in Sacramento and Washington, DC You see, Tony everyone in this room fights because without us, and we are the NRA, good people can't afford to defend themselves against abject cruelty. We fight, because, with the NRA, good people, when they pay their taxes, won't be making a political contribution to eliminate their constitutional rights. And we will continue to fight, because Fresno is not just the NRA's past. The struggle to safeguard every law-abiding citizen's constitutional rights is NRA's future. If we think we are close to securing our rights, if we think we are a few years away, even a decade, we are deluding ourselves. There is a future -- a future of struggle -- a long struggle. And running away to Nevada or any other state won’t blot out or shorten the struggle. Without you in that struggle, the Second Amendment will not prevail as it did in 1925 to stop mob hysteria. Without you in that struggle, the Bill of Rights will be buried, not just by private dollars, but by tax dollars. And nowhere is the Second Amendment more threatened than in the courts: Especially the courts in California. The courts are hostile to this precious right, and anyone here who values civil liberties should not be surprised. Certain jurists have an aversion to certain rights. I call it the Murphy's Law of American civil rights. The courts may think they rule, but the courts aren't always right. Imagine this nation if we all agreed, without exception, that the courts were always right. Then, we must all agree with a Supreme Court which, years ago, was hostile to the civil rights provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. We must all agree that people of different races should not be treated equally by their government. From the 1890s until after the Second World War, the Supreme Court basically refused to enforce the equal protection provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment and the voting rights provisions of the Fifteenth! The court was wrong, but the people prevailed. How? Because the civil rights movement recruited members. Because the civil rights movement made friends. We were all thrilled a few years ago when an article by author Jeffrey Snyder appeared in the scholarly journal Public Interest. It was a tough-minded piece called "A Nation of Cowards." Listen to this excerpt: "Crime is rampant because the law-abiding, each of us, condone it, excuse it, permit it, submit to it. We permit and encourage it, because we do not fight back, immediately, then and there, where it happens...The defect is there -- in our character...We are a nation of cowards." Tough talk. But for all his tough talk, Snyder's prescription for success might surprise you. He doesn't tell you to bring a baseball bat to political debates. He doesn't tell you to out-shout the opposition at public meetings. He doesn't tell you to be rude and boorish with lawmakers. What does Snyder recommend? "Ultimately, it is the support and esteem of our neighbors that we must win, for it is upon them that the continued enjoyment of our rights depends." Are we winning the support of our neighbors? Or are we doing the same thing the media does to us? Label us. Libel us. Spread false rumors about us. In 1995 when NRA pushed Right to Carry in Virginia, we realized that we would never win without the support of Democrats in Virginia's Democrat-controlled legislature. We sought the support where support was vital from Richard Cranwell. He is not just a delegate in the Virginia General Assembly. He is the majority leader. Some people in our movement do not understand the meaning of that man's title. If they don't know what the word "majority" is, then they don't know what "leader" means. You can complain all you want that a particular legislator is not 100 percent on your side. But when you don't work with the majority leader, you lose 100 percent of the time. After the legislature passed Right to Carry a pro-gun organization wrote to its members describing Delegate Cranwell as, "a closet tool of Sarah Brady and the gun-grabbers." Is that how we build the support of our neighbors? How does a "closet tool of Sarah Brady" help pass legislation that allows people like me to get one of these...permits to enable people like me to carry a firearm for personal protection? Answer: Tools of Sarah Brady don't issue permits. They try to ban them. Are we winning the support and esteem of our neighbors? Are we acting as if our rights really depend on their support? Since 1994 NRA has fought in ten thousand elections per cycle. NRA won eighty-two percent of them. Support for Second Amendment rights increased sharply in twenty-eight states But things aren’t that good here in California. Well, how can we make them better? Are you warm-hearted, or high-handed? Assertive or aggressive? Inviting? Or impossible? Tell me. Whose support have you won today? More importantly, whose support will you win tomorrow? Listen to the words of William Van Alstyne, once a contender for the U.S. Supreme Court and now Professor of Law at Duke University: "For the point to be made with respect to Congress and the Second Amendment is that the essential claim advanced by the NRA with respect to the Second Amendment is extremely strong...the constructive role of the NRA today [is] like the role of the ACLU in the 1920's with respect to the First Amendment..." The 1920s! Van Alstyne is not praising the NRA. If he's doing anything, he's sending a signal. That signal is: First amendment jurisprudence did not begin until 1918. Second Amendment jurisprudence may have begun in San Angelo Texas on March 30, 1999. So, if you're a Second Amendment champion, you'd better be ready for the long haul. When I look into the Second Amendment's future, I see every one of you, but let me be perfectly honest. I see your children too, and grandchildren (yours and mine), and your great grandchildren. Because this one, this one is the long one. No quick fixes, no cheap way outs, no silver bullets... Just one very, very long haul that will outlast us all. So, welcome to the future, my friends -- a future where we must do what we've been doing -- building on the words of our Founding Fathers, building our political might, building the support of our neighbors. If we respect the lessons of the champions of other civil rights, we will recruit new members, certainly welcome back Tony and many more like him, and make new friends. As we do, we will find ourselves shoulder to shoulder with our Founding Fathers. In the Second Amendment, they lit a fire of freedom. And we can read to our neighbors by the light of that fire the two lessons our Founding Fathers intended... That power does not belong exclusively in the hands of the state, and self-defense is indeed the primary civil right. Thank you. Tanya K. Metaksa is the former Executive Director of the National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA). Author of "Safe, Not Sorry", Mrs. Metaksa has appeared on many TV and radio shows such as "Crossfire", "Nightline" and "This Week".

"...Only Rip Van Winkle doesn’t know that gun owners in this state are under siege..."