By Douglas J. Hagmann
Gun and ammunition sales have been rising over the last few years, as have the number of concealed weapon permits being issued across the country. Please note I am not referring to the recent panic buying spree of semi-automatic weapons since the Sandy Hook school shooting. What is the real reason behind the rise of weapon sales and the increase in concealed carry permits? Who might be to blame, or if you are a manufacturer or gun store owner, who could be thanked? What if I told you it is national talk show host Michael Savage? Don’t believe me? Read on.
Contrary to the recent claims by Progressives, err, Socialists, is that men who own such big and scary guns is to compensate for physical deficiencies below the waist, owning a semi-automatic weapon is due to the realization that the government will not be able to protect you when needed, or will not protect you at all. While everyone points to major visible natural disasters and man-made crises, from hurricanes to riots, there is a much more subtle and arguably, much more serious threat that everyone seems to be missing. The situation of well-known talk show host Michael Savage no better illustrates it.
Regardless of what you think of him or his beliefs, everyone should pay close attention to his plight, especially if you have strong opinions and are willing to voice them. In May 2009, Dr. Savage learned he was banned from traveling to Great Britain “because his views might provoke violence.” He was on a list of 22 people, the names of 16 of which Great Britain Home Secretary Jacqui Smith released. After three-and-a-half years, he is still banned for having legitimate opinions and voicing them. Our government has done absolutely nothing to intervene on his behalf or protect his right to freedom of speech. Wait, you might ask, what does this have to do with the push to ban certain weapons in the U.S? Plenty, if you understand the actual agenda of those behind the coming weapons ban, and not the official storyline spewed ad nauseum by our elected officials and their lapdog media.
To most Americans, including those who have been paying attention, it would seem that the core issue is the prohibition of certain types of weapons, ostensibly to avert another mass shooting. Upon closer scrutiny, however, it is much more. It is a magic act being performed right in front of you, and Michael Savage was the first talk show host to be tossed into the global cauldron of forced tolerance and involuntary censorship. He was added to a witch’s brew with real terrorists with evil intent, whose possession of roadside bombs far outnumber their opinions and whose ability to cause death and destruction exists by their actions, not by someone else’s reaction. Of those on the banned travel list stewing in the global “mind-think,” Dr. Savage is the sole “tincture of opinion” in the brew, and there’s room for you in the cauldron. The recipe even demands it.
Have you noticed that anyone who has recently voiced support for an American’s Second Amendment rights has been systematically vilified by those in opposition, such that it is virtually impossible to have an honest, intelligent conversation about the issue? This is not an accident but an agenda. It is an agenda of vilification, of the planned prohibition of not only “scary guns” but of “scary talk.” It characterizes vocal resistance to a government agenda as prohibited behavior. It is forcing tolerance to fit a very specific, government-sanctioned ideology, beyond which becomes not only an exhibit of intolerance but of an intent intolerable to the government.
Banning weapons is only the visible part of the magic act, where the weapons are only props. The real act is taking place behind the smoke onstage, where a legitimate and rational opinion at odds with the government’s agenda is the real target. It is the plight of Dr. Savage in living color.
As the rights bestowed upon Americans by the First and Second Amendments to the U.S. Constitution are inextricably linked, the government is not only intending to prohibit our possession of certain weapons but of certain opinions. This is not merely an attack on our Second Amendment rights but a method to take away our ability to exercise those granted to us by the First Amendment. It is YOU they are after if your opinions don’t conform to their purpose.
The government of the United States of America has failed to protect the First Amendment rights of Michael Savage as an American citizen. They willfully and knowingly failed to stand up for the rights of an American citizen who has done nothing more than voice his opinions while standing on American soil. They permitted the ideology of one nation, the very nation from which we fought and won independence, to violate the rights of one man of high profile and visibility. Moreover, they tolerated Mr. Savage as being listed among the most heinous criminals to walk the earth for the appearance of “balance,” a fact admitted in official government correspondence because the list contained so many Muslim extremists.
The issue here goes well beyond the prohibition of guns. It is the intended prohibition of any ideology antithetical to the government which has been guaranteed through our right to bear arms, including that right itself. For his opinion, Michael Savage has been banned from traveling to the U.K., and apparently, everybody, including the U.S. government, is okay with that. It is an acquiescence or even a tacit approval of tyranny. We must never forget that the reason for the Second Amendment is to fight tyranny.
While Michael Savage is the most visible victim of such tyranny, it will not end with him. Absent of taking a firm, united and unmovable stand now for our rights as Americans under the Second Amendment, there will be more talk show hosts, more writers, and more people with opinions to fall victim to government-sanctioned oppression. If they can do what they’ve done to a man of his visibility, imagine what they can do to you.
We are the real targets, and as exhibited by the restrictions placed on Mr. Savage, it is clear that the U.S. government will not protect us. We must protect ourselves and each other. It is we who are the real targets, and the planned prohibition of our guns is just the most expedient means to an end. His current plight, that of being on a list of terrorists and evildoers just for having and speaking an opinion contrary that some find intolerant, unacceptable, and soon-to-be prohibited, is an active example of what every American who has recently bought a gun sees unfolding. They are seeing through the magician’s fog, and the government must maintain the magic show at all costs.
They came for Savage, and no one spoke out. When they come for you, who will be left?
Their tactics are clear. The government wants to prevent “Savage behavior,” or the behavior of possessing and expressing opinions. It begins with vilification, will proceed to confiscation, and then to elimination. History is repeating itself.
