Apathy enables gun control

June 7, 11:28 AMGun Rights ExaminerDavid Codrea

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I've written about Citizens of America before, a national media effort I was involved in to get a "pro-gun rights" message "outside the choir" and in front of a general audience. One focus of our campaign was producing radio ads.

We enjoyed some modest accomplishments--we got our ads played on radio stations in every state of the union. My sister even told me she was driving across Texas on a business trip and heard one. We'd even managed to attract an attack--and then a retraction--by none other than William F. Buckley, who had apparently skimmed over a piece about us and drawn a totally wrong conclusion:

In the column released on Jan. 14, Citizens of America was identified as "anti-gun" and as having circulated an anti-firearm ownership petition. This is incorrect. According to the organization: "Citizens of America is a non-profit educational organization that supports the right of all responsible, law-abiding, adult American to own and carry firearms for self-defense, state defense, national defense, sport and hunting." We regret the error.

I'd had high hopes when I helped found, assist with and promote the effort. An article that now resides only in the "Wayback Machine's" Internet archives reflects my optimism:

Our agenda for the night is aggressive. We will, when our studio time is up, have recorded three completed, ready-to-air radio commercials for "Citizens of America," a group whose mission statement is "To put ourselves out of business." And the only way to do this is to convince our fellow citizens that the Second Amendment is their right too, to expose the hypocrisy of politicians who push for ever restrictive gun control laws, to promote the life-saving benefits of private firearms ownership, and to, in essence, appeal to a market demand for freedom.

So what happened? In a word, apathy.

The funding needed to maintain the effort and expand into television didn't happen. Eighty million gun owners, and COA could barely break the $100,000 barrier in its first year of operation. Ultimately, it folded for lack of support, while anti-gun organizations enjoyed multi-million dollar budgets and photo ops with top politicians every time they opened their yaps.

The "Let George do it" attitude exhibited by so many otherwise belly-aching gun owners forced us to fold the operation.

I bring it up here not in hopes of resurrecting COA, but to remind you that there are ongoing projects now that are attempting to bring the truth to our countrymen but need your help to succeed. One such effort I talked about recently was a new video from JPFO.

I could name many others. They could all use our help. How many of us will?

I firmly believe as great an enemy of our rights as those who are against them are those who say they are for them but do nothing. Apathy is as great a threat as enmity. Possibly greater.

I have the COA radio spots and they're not doing any good stored on my hard drive. So I may decide to do a "COA Sundays" feature, presenting one ad a week, until I exhaust the inventory.

This is the first one produced, the one I described in my optimistic promo piece. Give it a listen. And feel free to share a link to this column with your friends, so they can hear it, too.

Note the "cell phone" reference in this ad--it was made before GPS technology was widely implemented. It still does not change the basic assumption that help cannot arrive in time to defend you from an attack.

      Also see: "Most Gun Owners Disgust Me!" by Nicki Fellenzer