Hartford Courant declares war on gun owners; Tells CT State Police to go get them

The Hartford, CT hometown newspaper has declared war on gun owners.

In a Valentine’s Day missive, the paper’s editors wrote:

State Can’t Let Gun Scofflaws Off Hook
EDITORIAL
Gun Registration: Break the law, pay the price
February 14, 2014| The Hartford Courant

Connecticut has a gun problem.

It’s estimated that perhaps scores of thousands of Connecticut residents failed to register their military-style assault weapons with state police by Dec. 31.

That’s the deadline imposed by a tough bipartisan gun-safety law passed by the legislature last year in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

Widespread noncompliance with this major element of a law that was seen as a speedy and hopefully effective response by Connecticut to mass shootings such as the one at Sandy Hook creates a headache for the state.

The dimensions of the unregistered guns problem were outlined in a Tuesday column by The Courant’s Dan Haar.

Guns defined in state law as assault weapons can no longer be bought or sold in Connecticut. Such guns already held can be legally possessed if registered. But owning an unregistered assault weapon is a Class D felony. Felonies cannot go unenforced.

“Felonies cannot go unenforced,” they wrote.

Robert Farago at The Truth About Guns wrote:  “The statists who enacted this law better let sleeping dogs lie. Or they will have to face the consequences, too. That’s not a threat. It’s a prediction.”

Mike Vanderboegh of the edgy Sipsey Street Irregulars is a little less circumspect.  He released an open letter the following day.

It’s long.  Very long.

Here’s the nut:

To the men and women of the Connecticut State Police and the 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.”

…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.)

…Thus, my kindly advice to you, just as it was to Lawlor, is to not go down that road. You are not the enemy of the people of Connecticut, not yet. The politicians who jammed this law down the peoples’ throats are plainly flummoxed by the resistance it has engendered. In the absence of a definitive U.S. Supreme Court decision do you really want to risk not being able to draw your pension over some politician’s insatiable appetite for power?

You have it within your power to refuse to initiate hostilities in an American civil war that would, by its very nature, be ghastly beyond belief and would unleash hatreds and passions that would take generations to get over, if then.

Please, I beg you to understand, you are not the enemy, you are not an occupying force — unless you choose to violate the oath that each of you swore to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against ALL enemies, foreign and domestic. For their part, the men and women who will be targeted by your raids took an identical oath. Can you think of anything more tragic than brother killing brother over some politician’s tyrannical appetite?

I can’t. The future — yours, mine, our children’s, that of the citizens of Connecticut and indeed of the entire country — is in YOUR hands.

At the very least, by your refusal you can give the courts time to work before proceeding into an unnecessary civil war against your own friends and neighbors on the orders of a self-anointed elite who frankly don’t give a shit about you, your life, your future or that of your family. They wouldn’t pass these laws if they thought that they would have to risk the potential bullet that their actions have put you in the path of. They count on you to take that bullet, in service of their power and their lies. Fool them. Just say no to tyranny. You are not the enemy. Don’t act like one.

Sincerely,

Mike Vanderboegh