It’s been a long weekend (joint birthday dinner with my brother and family, lots of kid stuff ranging from t-ball meeting for Littlest Guy to teaching Middle Guy how to do the brakes on his car (he’s not mechanical, but I figure he ought to know how they work).

And now a little time to write.

Rereading Trent’s comment and the entire message stream, it seems like there are three levels on which I want to respond. I’m not going to get to finish here and now, but what I want to do is set out the three levels on which we’re arguing, make my high-level case, and then as I have time to do it in more detail, dig deeper into at least one of the levels over the next few days.

So without further ado, here are the three levels:

1) . Trent writes:

You visibly itch when the subjects of morality and spirituality are brought up, just like most Democrats and Europeans.

That, BTW, is why most liberals, democrats and Europeans get on so well.

I’m gonna grit my teeth a bit on this one, Trent; actually you don’t know squat about my attitudes toward morality or spirituality, and the tone of brittle superiority sits kind of badly with me.

The dual-edged role of morality in politics is a complex one; and I’ll discuss my view of it more below in 3); but many liberals and Europeans don’t ‘itch’ when it’s brought up, they just differ from your standards, as I may.

2) Actual actions in France. Recent news (the new Franco/German proposal, for example) supports my suggestion that the true French goal is not only to block a U.S. invasion, but establish itself contra the U.S. as a player in the Middle East. Friedman’s much quoted column on replacing France with India as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council includes the quote:

Throughout the cold war, France sought to differentiate itself by playing between the Soviet and American blocs. France could get away with this entertaining little game for two reasons: first, it knew that Uncle Sam, in the end, would always protect it from the Soviet bear. So France could tweak America’s beak, do business with Iraq and enjoy America’s military protection. And second, the cold war world was, we now realize, a much more stable place. Although it was divided between two nuclear superpowers, both were status quo powers in their own way. They represented different orders, but they both represented order.

…

And the whole French game on Iraq, spearheaded by its diplomacy-lite foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, lacks seriousness. Most of France’s energy is devoted to holding America back from acting alone, not holding Saddam Hussein’s feet to the fire to comply with the U.N.

The French position is utterly incoherent. The inspections have not worked yet, says Mr. de Villepin, because Saddam has not fully cooperated, and, therefore, we should triple the number of inspectors. But the inspections have failed not because of a shortage of inspectors. They have failed because of a shortage of compliance on Saddam’s part, as the French know. The way you get that compliance out of a thug like Saddam is not by tripling the inspectors, but by tripling the threat that if he does not comply he will be faced with a U.N.-approved war.

Mr. de Villepin also suggested that Saddam’s government pass “legislation to prohibit the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction.” (I am not making this up.) That proposal alone is a reminder of why, if America didn’t exist and Europe had to rely on France, most Europeans today would be speaking either German or Russian.

I also want to avoid a war – but not by letting Saddam off the hook, which would undermine the U.N., set back the winds of change in the Arab world and strengthen the World of Disorder. The only possible way to coerce Saddam into compliance – without a war – is for the whole world to line up shoulder-to-shoulder against his misbehavior, without any gaps. But France, as they say in kindergarten, does not play well with others. If you line up against Saddam you’re just one of the gang. If you hold out against America, you’re unique. “France, it seems, would rather be more important in a world of chaos than less important in a world of order,” says the foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum, author of “The Ideas That Conquered the World.”

…emphasis mine

The French are motivated by a different set of interests serving a different set of constituencies than we are and have. Their interests are often not only in opposition to ours – acutely and subtly – but defined by being in opposition to ours, and we need to take that into account as we try and manage our relationship with them.

All of Europe is showing the cracks of a shotgun wedding between liberal democracy and bureaucratic despotism. It doesn’t work well, as we should be thoughtful about their experience as we consider (hey, Hillary!!) walking down the same path.

Trent suggests:

You have a distinct point about French crime and the GSIGN, but it isn’t the point that you think you are making….
The difference between the crime America faced in the 1970’s and the crime France (and other European states too include Britain) faces today is that the criminals from the French “cities of darkness” hate the very concept of France and French culture in general.

American criminals in the 1970s were not a threat to America physically or existentially.

Trent, were we alive in the same 70’s and 80’s? The era of the SLA? Of the Crips and Bloods and Blackstone Rangers? The rise of black street gangs to a position of armed dominance of large portions of our cities? Did I miss the part where Monster Kody wrapped himself in a flag and declared his loyalty to American core values?

As I noted, crime in France (and England, and the Netherlands, and Italy, and to a lesser extent, Spain) is passing the point where it is tolerable to the average citizen, and the liberal-bureaucratic state is thrashing about for a solution, and hasn’t found one. At this point, I envision a massive crackdown, with widespread violations of civil liberties and massive deportations. I think it will start soon, and that we will have one or two seminal events…a Sari Ribicoff…to start the political ball rolling.

The French nationalist “God” had failed so the French elites adopted a new one, what is now referred to as Transnational Progressivism. They look to me to be about 3/4 of the way from nationalism to “full Tranzie.” That is why you keep seeing things like the unilateral Ivory Coast intervention popping up from time to time in French foreign policy.

At home, the French seem to have made the full transition to Tranzie. The repeated punishment of white Frenchmen for defending themselves of their women from Muslim criminals, while letting off said criminals, is a tool of social control. Conditioning Frenchmen to rely on the GSIGN, the government anything but themselves is not western.

Well, for much of Europe (as opposed to England and the U.S., the citizen has relied on the state for physical defense for quite some time. The American notion of self-reliant self-defense would be quite alien to a typical Frenchman, not because they have been ‘operant conditioned’ by some secret bureaucracy, but because their culture does not go back through the Magna Carta. Interesting choice of descriptive terms as well, Trent…’white Frenchmen’…Norman Frenchmen don’t think of themselves as ‘white’, they think of themselves as ‘French’. The African immigrants talk about ‘les blancs‘. But I’ll let you amplify your intention on that one…

3) The role of morality in politics. Look, this is a worthy subject for a major book or a PhD thesis, not just a blog post written after putting the Littlest Guy to bed and cleaning the kitchen. But I do want to stake out some ground here with the promise to try and come back and mine it a bit deeper later on.

I’ll suggest that morality and spirituality in politics is central and absolutely necessary, on one hand, and incredibly dangerous on the other. I’ll follow with the assertion that the genius of the American Foundation was that it both provided a sphere for a politics centered on moral and spiritual values, and that it explicitly denied morality and spiritual values a seat at the political table.

This was a brilliant bank shot which has led to the American genius of assimilation and to the cultural openness which has made us the dominant force in the world for over a hundred years.

For myself, I am immediately cautious when presented with a self-proclaimed ‘morally driven politics’. I look to the left and see Pol Pot and Lenin (I don’t believe Stalin was driven by any morality but greatness, but I do believe that Lenin was a True Believer), to the right I see the Spanish Inquisition. Each was so absolutely assured of the deep morality of their ends that any means would not only suffice but were required to attain them. More recently, I look at the young faces of the war protesters, driven by an absolute impulse to morality that seems to preclude any rational thought; their fantasies are echoed in the interviews I read with the mujdaeen.

I am more temporizing than they are, simultaneously more suspicious of human nature and more trusting of my fellows to find their own paths.

Walter McDougall, author of Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter With the World since 1776 had a great essay in the late 90’s on Religion in Diplomatic History. He says:

Finally, our notions of history are skewed by the tendency of Western intellectuals to think in dialectical terms. Thus, we set realism and idealism, or secularism and religion, against one another as if they were mutually exclusive. In fact, the most profound students of Christian moral theology from Thomas Aquinas to Niebuhr argued that whatever is “unrealistic” (hence contrary to natural law) cannot by definition be moral! Applied to statecraft, this means that to expect utopian results from diplomacy and war is inevitably to invite immoral consequences – whether the crusade in question is one of self-righteous knights or innocent children led like lambs to the slaughter. Courage borne of religious faith may expand the bounds of the possible, but politics, as Bismarck said, remains the art of the possible. A truly moral approach to statecraft, therefore, takes human nature as it is, respects limits, and acknowledges the contingency of all human creations. It is one that pursues and upholds international order, seeks peace but prepares in extremis to fight, practices proportionality of force, receives defeated enemies back into the fold, and is honest and realistic about one’s own ends and means. For there is no virtue in stupidity or dishonesty, however lofty one’s motives. As Winston Churchill observed, “The high belief in the perfection of man is appropriate in a man of the cloth but not in a prime minister.”

This line of thought suggests that the sort of reasonable, restrained balance of power system founded in Westphalia, promoted by philosophers such as Hugo Grotius, Samuel Pufendorf, and Immanuel Kant, and nurtured by such hard-headed diplomats as Talleyrand, Metternich, and Palmerston, was not the antithesis of a “Christian” politics, but rather the best possible expression of it, especially by contrast to the religious wars that preceded it and the even more vicious era of nationalist and ideological wars that followed. Anglican historian Herbert Butterfield made the point presciently in 1954 when he wrote, “It is better to say that you are fighting for Persian oil than to talk of a ‘war of righteousness’ when you really mean that you believe you have a right to the oil; for you would be conducting an altogether unjust war if for a single moment you believed anything less than this.”

I’ll let the last stand on it’s own, and promise to extend this and tie it to my vision of a ‘politics of emergence’ in the next day or so.

Trent?

N.B. For the full (and updated) history of this discussion, see “Fight Night: The Dance in France.”

I have detested the LA Weekly for a long time; before its corporate parent engaged in transparent Clear-Channel type muscle to force and bribe the smaller edgier New Times out of town.

To me the combination of unchallenged, thoughtless, doctrinaire, sanctimonious leftism with ads for vaginal ‘rejuvenation’, penis enlargement, jewelry, fashion, and the reviews latest, hippest trends typifies much of what pushes me away from the mainstream left that dominates Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco.

But I have jones for newsprint, and since Layne and company haven’t sent me my sample copy of the L.A. Examiner yet, I picked one up at dinner last night (confession: We went to a trendy Venice sushi bar and had a wonderful time, then walked around my old neighborhood and enjoyed urban life for a bit).

And damn if they didn’t have two excellent articles I want to push out to folks.

The first one is about a group of students and teachers who stood up to the LAUSD and actually tried to get Locke High to become a place of learning…

By March, the LSU had condensed their concerns to 10 demands. First on the list was “an immediate end to brutality toward students, including illegal searches and seizures, unlawful arrests, constant surveillance, and excessive use of force.” They demanded qualified teachers in every class, and that teachers stay awake and not talk on cell phones. They demanded books and materials, the hiring of additional counselors, more extracurricular activities and sports, a well-rounded curriculum. They demanded an end to standardized tests like the Stanford 9, which they considered racist, and to be informed of their right to opt out of taking such exams. They demanded more “positive social events” like dances, field trips and, tragically, vigils. They demanded access to the school’s budget to see how funds were being spent. In short, they demanded the right to have a voice in their education, and, more basically, they demanded an education. Before the semester ended, they would have to add an 11th demand: “The freedom to express injustice without retaliation toward teachers, students or parents.”

Go read the whole thing; there’s no clear victory, but the story is a thrilling one of adults and children standing up to a collapsing, despotic bureaucracy. There’s no clear victory, but there was a good fight, and it gives hope that there will be more.

The second is a review of a TV show called The Office; since we have no TV, I can’t testify to the quality of the review, but I had to pull a quote and show it to you:

Brent and Gareth find their jobs rewarding, but then they’re both severely deluded individuals. Tim (Martin Freeman), a moody sales rep so crushed with boredom it almost paralyzes him, and Dawn (Lucy Davis), the melancholy receptionist he’s in love with, are the “normal” characters, all too aware that they’re leading dead-end lives. One feels for them — who wants to work in a rinky-dink paper-supply company, after all, especially when you’re apt to get downsized for your pains? — but The Office is perhaps a little too eager to dismiss such work as meaningless, almost beneath contempt. (I, for one, use paper quite a lot, and am happy someone’s out there supplying it.) Ricky Gervais, who not only plays Brent but also co-writes and directs the show, told The New York Times recently that, minus the comedy, the show is about “missed opportunity” and “wasting your life.”

Well, yes, no doubt it is — at least when viewed from the giddy heights of television stardom. There are very few jobs that don’t amount to a waste of time, if you want to look at it that way, as the movie About Schmidt recently reminded us. (Who can forget Jack Nicholson watching the minute hand crawl toward 5 o’clock on his last day?) But would working for a paper supplier be a mistake if it paid $1 million a year and landed you two fast cars and a house in the country? Or are “creative,” “cultural” occupations, like working at the BBC, for instance, the only dignified ones left to us? There’s an unexamined snobbery in The Office that leaves a bad aftertaste. In fact, it can’t even be bothered to really show us what the jobs of the various characters amount to. We see them play pranks on each other, answer the phones and fiddle vaguely at their keyboards, but that’s about it.

Damn!! A writer at the LA Weekly extolling the value of bourgeois work…what will happen next? I can hardly wait.

If this keeps up, I guess I’ll have to adjust my own prejudices. I hate it when that happens, don’t you?

Trent and Joe have launched a discussion here about France and our relationship. Instapundit and Vodkapundit have weighed in as well.

In reading these, I kept getting a vague discomfort, kind of like the feeling you get when the moules you eat aren’t bad but aren’t really right either. First let me lay out some foundations.

I’m not an expert on France, French politics, or modern European international politics (I don’t think Trent, Joe, or the others are, either…that’s not a disqualification, just a comment on the limits of my and our knowledge and experience). I do have some direct experience; my first wife is French, and she and I traveled and stayed there frequently for ten years and lived there for a year a long time ago while I finished work on my Masters. Her late father was a general in the French Air Force (the real deal; he flew bombers from England during WWII, and served in Indochina and Algeria, as well as a tour as an attaché in Washington D.C.), and was on the board of one of the three largest French companies when I knew him.

My advisor in Berkeley also was a student of French history and economics, and even published a book, Modern Capitalist Planning: the French model on the subject.

I say this just to give some perspective to my opinions…I have no special knowledge; these opinions come from my memory of wide-ranging discussions with a number of interesting people, and the fact that I still read Le Monde occasionally.

First, I think that Trent and Steve are just flat wrong when they criticize France for not acting like an ally. They are right that France isn’t acting like an ally, but wrong to assume that it is or ever was.In my impression, the driving force behind French international politics is the simple desire to carve out a space where France…even as a second- or even third-class world power…can lead. And those areas are twofold: defining the bureaucracy that they hope will subsume national governments, and in dealing with Africa and the Middle East, where they feel that their ‘benign’ colonial history…to them their willingness to withdraw from Algeria and bring the pieds-noirs home counts as that…gives them special status as the ‘portal’ between these regions and the West.

We in the U.S. are cming to perceive a great conflict between Islamist forces and the West, while the French see the Islamists as people who can be dealt with, leader to leader, and see an great opportunity for France (and Europe) as becoming the gateway between the oil-rich Middle East and the West.

This is totally in line with French diplomatic history in which the major defining principle has been to define themselves against whoever is in power at the moment; first their peer power, Prussia, then England, then the United States. They have always been comfortable that with their ‘realism’ and diplomatic skills, they could reach some rapproachment with the other side, whether that was the Soviet Union, Libya, or now Iraq.

Our frustration with France comes from our (not unreasonable) assumption that a) since we keep bailing them out of military difficulties; b) we rebuilt their economy twice; and c) they lived under our military protection for twenty years, they would act as allies and assume that our interests were parallel, with small differences involving metric v. English measurement and whether we would sell Michelin or UniRoyal tires to various third-word accounts.

They don’t feel that way.

They loved DeGaulle for navigating between the force fields of the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and for developing the ’force de frappe’ which they felt ensured France’s military independence.

Trent argues that they are in the midst of a ‘moral collapse’ as state and corporate corruption combines with the increasingly ungovernable banlieues (50’s and 60’s suburbs largely occupied by African and Arab immigrants) and an elite that has lost its philosophical compass.

Let me suggest an alternative theory, which I believe better accounts for the facts.

France is a bureaucratic state, with both the government and private sector fully enmeshed in a dirigiste bureaucracy, with all of the problems which that may entail (see my own writing on the subject). The French have what would be, to many of us, a flexible morality that goes beyond the public acknowledgement of the Prime Minister’s mistresses and illegitimate children, and to the notion of ‘favors’ of various types, both political and corporate.

The political compass of the bureaucracy is not only their own individual advancement, but the institutional advancement of France, and the empowerment of France in a world dominated by larger and more powerful players. The EU would set this triumph in cement, as France joins hands with Germany and takes over Europe.

France has never cared about the U.N. or international process except as a forum in which it could maneuver to maintain its independence.

The French are vaguely amused at our ‘moralistic’ view of international affairs. They pride themselves on cold-eyed realism, and in fact can be astoundingly bloody-minded when it suits them (see the Rainbow Warrior, pretty much anything about the Algerian war). If the 9/11 attacks had happened in Paris and say, Toulouse, large parts of the Middle East would be smoking holes right now, U.N. mandate or no U.N. mandate.

France, like most of the cities in Europe, has for years had a crime rate that would stagger a politician in the U.S. Criminals recently robbed an armored car with a RPG; in the 70’s and 80’s, well-off families (like my in-laws) kept ‘beater’ cars in town, and luxury cars at their homes in the country. The locks on the doors of their Ave de la Gde Armee apartment … in the late 1970’s … put to shame the security systems I see on my friends’ in New York or Chicago.

It is increasing, and there are strong reactions to it … Le Pen as one example. First, the signals of social breakdown Trent discusses are not unique to France (see the recent decision by police in the U.K. not to investigate property crimes), and second, the ‘breakdown’ is highly unlikely to happen, because before it gets to that state, I predict that we will see an authoritarian crackdown that would make moderate Republican fans of ‘law and order’ blush. I believe that one reason that the French are more sanguine about this is that they are convinced that the GSIGN can and will deal with any domestic disorder before it becomes a true threat to the social order.

France is, to the best of their belief, pursuing a path that is in the best interests of France.

Now, I think they are wrong; I think they are wrong as they place their reliance in a bureaucratic legitimacy; wrong in their vision for Europe; and wrong in their approach to the issues posed by Islamist Arabs.

And I’m amused to taunt them as members of the “Axis of Weasels”.

But it’s a crucial mistake to pound the table and attribute their actions to impending moral and social collapse; it’s a mistake because it prevents us from dealing with them in a clear-eyed, rational, forceful yet respectful manner. They aren’t going anywhere. Our relationship with them is going to change; but in the next decades we will need all the temporary allies we can get, and we can hope that it will doubtless change again.

We’ve been talking about alternatives to the command-and-control style of massive institutions like NASA.

Here’s an alternative:

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) intends to conduct a race of autonomous ground vehicles (see “Technical Details” for a definition) from the vicinity of Los Angeles, CA to Las Vegas, NV in 2004. A cash prize will be awarded to the winner. The course will feature both on-road and off-road portions and will include extremely rugged, challenging terrain and obstacles. The purpose of the race is to stimulate interest in and encourage the accelerated development of autonomous ground vehicle technologies that could be used by the US military.
…
A $1,000,000 cash prize will be awarded to the eligible team fielding the vehicle that successfully completes the course with an elapsed time that is shorter than the elapsed time of all other race vehicles and is within a pre-set maximum time limit. The winning team will be officially recognized at the next DARPATech, a technical conference hosted by DARPA. The winning team will be invited to display the winning vehicle and present a paper detailing their design.

There will be no prizes for anything other than first place. If no vehicle completes the course within the time limit, no prize will be awarded.
…

Just a thought…

OK, here are the contents of the first-aid kits we keep in the cars and house. Note that these are way too much for a simple accident; they are intended to support several people over several days and deal with a wide range of injuries and conditions. I have a reduced ‘accident kit’ that I carry on my motorcycle, and a much smaller one I carry in a pocket in my riding suit.

Things to wipe, clean, and disinfect with:

Qty Item

6 Povidone-Iodine Prep
4 Benzalkonium Chloride Wipe
10 Povidone-Iodine Ointment (in zip lock)
5 Neosporin
1 Eyewash/cleaner (Benzalkonium Chloride)
1 Tincture of Benzoin or Mastisol
15 Instant tears
1 Sheet Moleskin
1 Sheet NuSkin

Bandages, splints, wraps

Qty Item

10 Band-Aids
10 Telfa Non-Stick Sterile Pad
5 Shur-Strip Skin Closures
2 rolls Tape, Adhesive, Surgical, Camo. (cloth)
1 roll Tape, Transpore
4 x 4 Gauze Pads
2 Eye Pad
4 Bandage, Muslin, Compressed, Camo. (Gauze Bandage)
1 Splint, (SAM)
6 Dressing, First-Aid, Field, Individual. (Battle Dressing)
1 Bandage, Elastic (ACE Wrap) 2″
1 Bandage, Elastic (ACE Wrap) 4″
3 Bandage, Cohesive, Flexible (Co-ban, Co-flex, Vet. Wrap)
1 ACS Chest Seal
1 12″ x 24″ 3/8 wet suit material
5′ Gaffer Tape (not duct tape)

Tools

Qty Item

1 Penlight, Exam
1 CPR Shield
1 CPR Mask
10 pair Gloves, Nitrile, Examination (in zip lock)
6 Zip lock bags
1 EMT Shears/scissors/tweezers/penlight in pouch
1 Pocket Medic Book
1 Recovery Blanket
3 Instant Cold Pack
5 paper thermometers
1 Metal mirror
1 box Waterproof matches
1 stick Wax firestarter
4 Batteries for penlight
1 Bulb for penlight

Medicines

Qty Item

2 packs Tums
2 tubes Tylenol
20 Motrin
10 Imodium
10 Benadryl
1 vial Ipecac Syrup
6 Burn Gel

plus misc family prescriptions (things we take chronically or that might be useful)

The base kits were designed by John Holschen of Insights Training, Inc., and have proved to be extremely useful over the last several years.

People do look at you a bit askance when you pull it out of the back of the car…it fits into a standard military-surplus field medical pouch…but I wouldn’t be without it.

Obviously, the tools are relatively useless without a fair amount of training, and I thank John and my various First Responder instructors for all of that.

I’ve gotten useful additions and comments from folks more experienced than I in the past, and welcome comments and suggestions from readers.

Most of the products here are available from Gall’s or Emergency Medical Products.

JK Note: Insn’taPundit thinks this little kit could have real Homeland Security implications, as part of a “swarm, not herd” defense strategy.

Check out this letter from Ronnie Barrett (manufacturer of the Barrett .50 cal rifles) to Los Angeles Police chief William Bratton.

The City of Los Angeles is moving to ban the sale (and possibly possession) of .50 caliber rifles and ammunition; my view of actions like this is expressed here:

The gun show loophole crisis is like the .50 caliber rifle crisis. It doesn’t exist.

I don’t doubt that some guns are sold at gunshows to people who couldn’t get them at a traditional dealer. Some being a very small number, near the limit of statistical measurement. I don’t doubt that someone has, or likely will, commit a crime using a .50 caliber rifle.

But in terms of impacting the overall level of crimes using guns in this county, we’re looking at something less than rounding error.

And, simply, it’s time to stop passing laws because a) they give legislators something to say they did come re-election time; and b) because they sound good on TV. You want to propose gun laws?? Make a convincing argument, not based on anecdote, but on statistically valid research, that it will have an impact. And, best of all, convince me that the laws you are passing aren’t simply turning up the heat under the frog.

When someone proposes a package of gun legislation that a) has some reasonable likelihood of measurably reducing crimes where firearms are used; and b) has some built in, irrevocable, defendable baseline guarantee of my right as a noncriminal citizen to arms, I’ll look really hard at it and probably support it.

It’s all just re-election posturing until then.

Barrett’s letter describes just such posturing in painful detail.

At that council meeting, I was very surprised to see an LAPD officer seated front and center with a Barrett 82A1 .50 cal rifle. It was the centerpiece of the discussion. As you know, there have been no crimes committed with these rifles, and most importantly, current California law does not allow the sale of the M82AI in the state because of its detachable magazine and features that make it an “assault weapon.” This rifle was being deceptively used by your department. The officer portrayed it as a sample of a currently available .50 cal rifle, available for sale to the civilians of Los Angeles. One councilman even questioned how this rifle was available under current laws, but as I stated, facts were ineffective that day.

His response?

Your department had sent one of your 82A1 rifles in to us for service. All of my knowledge in the use of my rifle in the field of law enforcement had been turned upside down by witnessing how your department used yours. Not to protect and serve, but for deception, photo opportunities, and to further an ill-conceived effort that may result in the use of LA taxpayer monies to wage losing political battles in Washington against civil liberties regarding gun ownership.

Please excuse my slow response on the repair service of the rifle. I am battling to what service I am repairing the rifle for. I will not sell, nor service, my rifles to those seeking to infringe upon the Constitution and the crystal clear rights it affords individuals to own firearms.

He’s certainly putting his money where his mouth is.

This is a legislative photo-op; it doesn’t solve a problem, because today no meaningful problem exists. We have a real problem with violent crime in this country in no small part because those who govern confuse legislation with action, and waste their time on actions like this instead of identifying and tackling the tough issues that would produce results.