THE COLOR STUPID by L. Neil Smith I attended my first gun show in a long time yesterday. I used to enjoy them very much, but since the election of Brady Bill Clinton they've seemed more to me like the funeral of an old friend than a festive occasion and -- particularly since the Libertarian Second Amendment Caucus has plenty of local allies to carry the fight to this venue -- quite frankly, I've been avoiding them. This show was in nearby Greeley, Colorado. My wife Cathy and my daughter Rylla bought a little jewelry, I got some inexpensive .40 S&W for Cathy's Firestar and my brand-new Witness Longslide, and some grips for the Browning P-35 I've recently converted to .41x22 AE -- and, as it turned out, we all had a good time. Naturally the talk at every table was political. Gunfolk see themselves clearly as an oppressed minority. That should scare the hell out of liberal Democrats who've embraced the role of an oppressive elite complete with vicious dogs, firehoses, mirrored sunglasses, and bloated bellies -- if they had the brain power (or a sufficient understanding of history) to appreciate what it means. Which they don't. Yet these gunfolk were more cheerful, more considerate, and more comradely to us and to one another than I've ever seen them -- which should frighten liberal Democrats even more. A dealer from (even nearer-by) Loveland seized my hand and shook it when I told him I'm with the Libertarian Party (Cathy decided then and there to buy her new deer rifle from him because of that) and everyone was enthusiastic about the Libertarian Second Amendment Caucus position on jailing politicos who violate the Bill of Rights. Our Statement of Principles' capital punishment clause was particularly popular. The exception to all this enthusiasm was an argument I had, more or less by accident, with representatives of the Firearms Coalition of Colorado. This excellent group grew from the abject failure of the National Rifle Association to defend the Second Amendment in this state. I like and respect its leaders, even though most of them suffer a debilitating weakness in evidence at the show. They are still Republicans. The argument began when I saw their poster listing Colorado politicians who've recently betrayed the Second Amendment. One name conspicuously missing was that of Senator Hank Brown who, to everybody's utter astonishment (including mine) voted for the "assault weapons" ban. I pointed this omission out and the fight was on. "But he said he was _sorry_ ..." "What has that got to do with anything? If he and a lot of other Republicans hadn't voted for the damned thing, it wouldn't be around to plague us now! Will he promise to repeal it? The Libertarian Party will -- and to jail everybody who voted for it!" "The Libertarian Party? They can't get even three percent of the vote!" I've no idea how he chose this figure, but I wish I'd just told him he was _talking_ to a candidate who'd gotten _fifteen_ percent in 1978, running openly as an anarchist against the six- term Speaker of the Colorado House. What I told him instead -- and I know it was a mistake -- was that _he_ was part of the missing three percent, that if he and others like him would stop helping to fulfill their own dismal prophecy, things might start to change. This was a bit too deep and complex for his reptile brain (no criticism intended -- I've had this argument so many times my own archaic lobes were fully active and the upper ones shut down for the duration) and the discussion ended in slowly-subsiding growls as his "superior officer" and my lovely spouse pulled us apart. Not that she wasn't plenty sore, herself. The argument, which she's had lots of times, too, raised my pulse and stirred my blood in a way that felt good, but it nearly ruined the show for her. Why could the Coalition see the shortcomings of the NRA, but not those of Republicans? Why give libertarians no credit at all for twenty years of unbroken loyalty to the Second Amendment? We talked as we looked the rest of the tables over, and it suddenly occurred to me that, with regard to the Republican Party, gunfolk -- organized, political gunfolk -- are like the battered wife who returns to an abusive husband again and again, no matter how regular, humiliating, or severe the beatings he gives her. "But where will I go?" she whimpers whenever it's suggested that she leave the S.O.B. "What will I do? Who will take care of me?" "Exactly how does blacking your eyes, splitting your lip, and breaking both your collar-bones constitute taking care of you?" "But where will I go?" A social worker usually directs such a person to a shelter for a bed and three meals a day until they cut the cast off. When they do, the same social worker will tell you, the odds are pretty good that the "victim" will go back to being "victimized" again. Why? To paraphrase the old-time Mickey Mouse Club, because she _likes_ it. Do Republican gunfolk _really_ want to keep their Second Amendment rights? If they did, wouldn't they have dumped their sorry party on the ash-heap of history by now? Or do they secretly, perversely _enjoy_ being abused by Hank Brown and his lying ilk? A while after the argument, the guy running the Coalition table -- an old friend as professionally political as I am -- sought me out. It was no concession on his part; I'd been about to do the same. I told him that -- and, very politely, about my insight concerning Republican gun voters and the battered wife syndrome. It stopped him cold. If he thinks about it -- I know him well enough to believe he might -- it may change the way he looks at the Republican and Libertarian parties. Give it a try yourself, the next time you have the same dumb argument with otherwise perfectly decent allies unfortunately wedded to a political party that abuses them. Like chicken soup, it couldn't hurt.