This is the Result of a "Decades-Long Slow-Motion Hate Crime," Ms. Whittenburg

I have said that sometimes gun owners are our own worst enemies, but I have to admit that this story I ran into last week in Houston left me ambivalent:

Gun 'bullies' spread fear in Augusta

© 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

She knows that simply asking the question is enough to set them off. But Cathie Whittenburg, executive director of Maine Citizens Against Handgun Violence, can't help herself.

"What ever happened to civility?" Whittenburg asked Tuesday as her group's legislative agenda - or what's left of it - limped toward the end of the session. "There's a level of anger here that you don't see with other bills. And these people, you know, are armed!"

Yes, and you're pissing them off! It's been going on for decades now, and all of us are tired of it. We've figured out that "sensible gun laws" means "gun bans" and some have decided that "civility" isn't going to stop it, so perhaps harsh language might be called for.

I don't feel that way myself (often), but I certainly understand the sentiment.

Responsible gun owners, step away from your computer keyboards. Whittenburg is the first to acknowledge that the nasty e-mails and telephone messages surrounding Maine's never-ending debate over firearms come not from mainstream hunters or target shooters or collectors. Rather, she blames them on "the bullies" who attack anything they consider a threat to their beloved Second Amendment.

I suspect that more than a few of them are mainstream hunters or target shooters or collectors. They're the ones, after all, actively engaged in the shooting sports.

But lately, those bullies have Whittenburg worried. Last week's story out of Augusta - that state Sen. Ethan Strimling, D-Portland, had forwarded three pieces of hate mail to the Attorney General's Office, including one from the "No Warning Headshot Photo Lab for Freedom" - is but one example of what Whittenburg calls a stepped-up offensive against anyone who dares submit a bill containing the word "firearm." (Strimling apparently put himself in the cross hairs by proposing that Maine adopt a statewide ban on assault weapons.)

And you wonder just exactly what the Second Amendment was put there for, don't you, when you get a reaction like that?

Let me be clear here: I neither advocate nor endorse such actions. They're stupid, they're illegal, and anyone who does it to that extent ought to be arrested. But on the other hand I used to think that Claire Wolf's statement about government, "It's too early to shoot the bastards," was on the money. I no longer do. I'm conviced now that Jefferson, as radical as he was, had the right of it:

And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always, well informed. The past which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive; if they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independant 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants.

It's not too early, it's too late. We've passed the point where it would be at all effective. Too much of the population would reject any such action, and it would result in more government interference, not less.

"It's really unfortunate for people who are brave enough to sponsor these bills," Whittenburg said. "If your name is on a (firearms) bill, you get slammed."

But not shot. Yep, you certainly are brave to be bearding the lion in its den, aren't you?

"Absolutely," agreed Rep. Margaret Craven, D-Lewiston, during a break at the State House. It wasn't long after she submitted a bill last January calling for a 10-day waiting period on firearms sales to anyone younger than 22, Craven said, that she began getting cryptic calls and e-mails telling her, "You're going to be sorry you did this."

Granted, that could mean her bill, which by Tuesday had been watered down almost beyond recognition, could cost Craven re-election. Or it could mean something else.

"I grew up in Ireland, where you get very sensitive to threats and anything involving weapons," said Craven. When the first threats began showing up on her phone machine and computer last winter, she said, "I became very concerned. I remember thinking, 'Gee, I even have these legislative plates on my car . . .' "

And we all know just how effective gun control laws have been in Ireland, don't we?

So "let's do it over here" strikes you as a good idea?

Rep. Deborah Pelletier-Simpson, D-Auburn, knows the feeling. She sponsored a bill this session that would tax firearm sales and use the money to improve security in Maine's courthouses. As a victim of domestic violence six years ago, Pelletier-Simpson knew firsthand what it's like to sit in the courthouse lobby afraid that all hell might break loose.

I imagine she knows all too well what it's like to sit in her home, afraid that "all hell might break loose." Yet she seems to think that attempting to disarm other people will somehow make her safe. Sheesh. And she's an elected representative of the People. She should read TFS Magnum. Maybe she'd get a clue.

Earlier in the session, Pelletier-Simpson's response to one nasty e-mail about her bill (the tax part has been stripped out, she said, while the rest of the proposal is "on life support") found its way to an ultra-conservative Web site. She came home from a weekend away to find her answering machine full of messages - all from men, all screaming, all saying "I had no right to represent people. I should resign my office ..."

I understand the sentiment. I disapprove of the style.

"They were all kind of veiled threats," said Pelletier-Simpson. "By the time I finished listening, I was in tears. It was frightening."

But I bet you'll be brave as hell next session, and try to introduce more gun-control legislation, won't you?

Then there's Rep. Carole Grose, D-Woolwich, who co-sponsored Strimling's assault-weapons bill - but isn't sure she'd do it again.

Hmmm...

Perhaps it's more effective a tactic that I gave it credit for...

The bill died before a legislative committee on Friday - yet Grose's telephone rang every 15 minutes all weekend ("Sometimes I listened. Other times I just held the phone out and let them go.") and her e-mail inbox was still smoking as late as Monday night.

"One of them called me an 'enemy of the country,' " Grose said, adding that by the time she had waded through the page-and-a-half diatribe, "I felt like I had a target on my back."

"For what we get paid up here, it's not worth it to me," said Grose. "How do I know there isn't some radical person out there who's actually going to do something?"

And aren't those the ones you're trying (with complete lack of success) to disarm? No, you're trying to disarm people like me.

It's not a rhetorical question. Whittenburg, of Maine Citizens Against Handgun Violence, has a story in her news archives about 20-year-old Michael Breit of Illinois, who in November was convicted of illegally receiving explosive materials with intent to kill, injure or intimidate people.

It seems Breit accidentally discharged his AK-47 in his apartment a year ago, and police who responded found a hit list of public figures who were, he later told police, "marked to die" for their liberal or anti-gun views.

"I truly believe we're talking about a minority here," Whittenburg said. "But it can be a real threat."

That's exactly what Strimling thought when he forwarded his hate mail to the AG's office last week. The postcard from the "No Warning Headshot Photo Lab for Freedom" not only called him a "treasonous Jew," he said, but it also ended with the words, "Triangulation squad at hearing on Monday 10 a.m. In your face debate, traitor."

"I didn't get it until after the hearing," Strimling said. "Had I gotten it before, I probably wouldn't have gone."

Back in 2000, Dr. Michael S. Brown of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership wrote The Radicalization of America's Gun Culture from which I got the "decades-long slow-motion hate crime" quote. Dr. Brown said then:

Members of the great American gun culture who actively enjoyed their sport and celebrated their firearms heritage were once considered the backbone of America, both for their militarily valuable shooting skills and for their patriotism. Decades of deliberate attacks by politicians and the media have slowly relegated this important group to the status of a subculture that now feels out of place and at war with its own government.

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Since the National Firearms Act was signed into law in 1934, the number of gun control laws at all levels of government have multiplied exponentially. So has the overall crime rate, which some argue is a direct result of gun control laws that discourage self-defense.

Although none of these laws reduced crime, each new law creates another way that a well intentioned gun owner can inadvertently end up in prison or ruined by legal costs. Some have been killed in raids by government agents. Much like laws passed to promote the failed war on drugs, each new gun law gives the police additional powers that threaten basic constitutional rights.

America's lawful gun owners are painfully aware of these facts. Since gun laws don't reduce crime, they wonder, what is the real purpose? This question has led to numerous theories that attempt to explain why the "ruling elite", which includes the media and many politicians, would want to eliminate civilian gun ownership in America.

American gun owners feel as if they are being slowly crushed. One writer recently described this decades-long campaign as a slow motion hate crime.

Frustration has been building in the gun culture for thirty years and has been accelerating with the faster pace of anti-gun attacks and the dramatic improvement in communications. Stories of outrageous persecution by government agencies now circulate like wildfire via the internet. Anti-gun bills introduced in any legislature are instantly made known to millions.

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Some observers of this cultural war wonder why large numbers of gun owners have not yet resorted to violence to preserve their way of life. Civil wars have started over less.

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Nobody knows if, when or how this group will reach its breaking point, but one must question the wisdom of infuriating millions of armed citizens.

You want to know where civility went, Ms. Whittenburg? Ask Eleanor Holmes Norton. Ask Joseph Pelleteri. Ask Lester Campbell. Ask Bruce Louis Bartos. Ask Christopher and Trudy Sherburne. Ask Al Woodbridge. Harry & Teresa Lamplugh. Jerry Michel. (And read the follow-up.) Ask...

Well, you get the idea. The list is nearly endless. And infuriating.

You reap what you sow. Sow the wind, ...