RECOIL Magazine Issue 46

In this issue, we address one of the frequent criticisms leveled at us — that of only featuring high-end kit. In case you missed it, our cover gun is perhaps the lowest of the low, without resorting to brands such as Jennings, Lorcin, and Hi-Point, which also manage to turn out products that occasionally make loud noises. Our Wish.com AR-15 is just the kind of thing to give pants-wetting politicians the heebie-jeebies — a $250 “assault weapon,” available to just about anyone who can legally own a firearm.

In case you think I’m throwing shade on anyone whose budget doesn’t stretch to Noveske and Hodge Defense, nothing could be further from the truth. While we all like nice stuff, there’s a Ford in my driveway, not a Ferrari.

Recently, we’ve been treated to the spectacle of people who should know better, attempting to outdo each other when it comes to the abrogation of our rights. Here at RECOIL, we try to stay out of politics, right up to the point at which politicians try to insert themselves into our fundamental rights. If they chose to simply leave us the feck alone, then all would be hunky-dory. But no.

Currently, the Democratic party is in the throes of a lurch to the left, and it’s a bit like watching a 4-year-old learning to swear, as various actors flirt with socialism. It’s almost as if they don’t quite know what they’re doing, but realize it’s a bit edgy.

Hailing from the land of the not-so free, having grown up under various socialist governments and witnessing firsthand the expression of that particular system in the Balkans, it’s fair to say I’m not a fan.

But I’m often reminded of George Orwell’s thoughts on the place of firearms in a just society. A committed socialist, who like Hemingway fought in the Spanish Civil War, he nonetheless was wedded to the idea that power should reside in the hands of the people, not the state. “That rifle on the wall of the labourer’s cottage or working-class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.” If only our current crop of political candidates on the national stage was as committed to individual freedom.

When Francis O’Rourke spoke earnestly on national TV about going door to door to confiscate people’s AR-15s, you could almost hear establishment politicians groaning, knowing that they were about to see a year’s worth of political ads featuring that sound bite. Yet, when the only machine capo of note to distance himself from that stated position is Chuck Schumer, you kind of get an inkling of what the end game is supposed to be.

Alright, we get it. O’Rourke is a nobody, who’s passed through the colon of state politics to be plopped out onto a stage, and who’ll disappear into obscurity once the primaries are over. Despite never having actually accomplished anything without mommy and daddy funding it, he’s managed to stumble upon a policy position to differentiate himself from the rest of the dross. Or at least he tried, before other no-hopers realized he was getting a bit of media play, so they too hopped on the bandwagon.

I’ve seen this Kabuki play before. The first time, I was in my 20s and had a bright, shiny career and future ahead of me, and so rather than doing what integrity and the rights of future generations demanded, I simply stepped out of the path of the oncoming train, and moved to the USA. So I’m fully committed to doing whatever it takes to ensure that doesn’t happen again.

The notion of a morally justifiable “buyback” of the public’s firearms is laughable on every level. In order to execute a legal contract, there must be an offer, acceptance, consideration, and mutual consent, among others. At least two of these factors would be absent in any conceivable scheme, and a third dubious, so where does that leave us? Quite simply, with state-sponsored extortion or theft, which irrevocably changes the relationship of the government to the people.

There’s no moral requirement to follow an immoral law. So I refuse to do so.

Check out RECOIL Issue 46

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