"DO IT TO JULIA"

-- by L. Neil Smith --

I get it now.

Twenty-odd years ago, I remember being inspired by the sight and
sound of William B. Ruger of Sturm, Ruger & Co., driving the current
advocates of victim disarmament into disorderly retreat on national TV
by the simple expedient of demanding -- over and over again -- to know
the source of their statistics.  It turned out that they'd made their
numbers up -- out of whole cloth or thin air, whichever metaphor you
prefer -- and good old Bill had caught them at it and finally
outmaneuvered them into admitting it.

It is to be regretted deeply that the William B. Ruger we see today is
a sadly different specimen. Having communicated with various members
of Congress, suggesting that they outlaw any rifle or pistol magazine
one round more capacious than any he happens to manufacture -- "Do it
to Julia!" is the way George Orwell described this syndrome in the
novel _1984_ -- he now has his company enclose printed material with
the firearms it sells, attempting to alibi the great disservice he did
to the customers, past, present, and future, he has dishonored with
his craven behavior.

I don't know what political party Bill Ruger considers himself to be a
member of.  But based on the nearly identical performance, recently,
of somebody whose abject fealty I do know, I'm prepared to make a
guess.  Having treated the ears of America to his cowardly and cruel
indifference with regard to the federal government's crimes at Waco,
Texas in the summer of 1993 (an indifference vastly exceeding Bill
Ruger's magazine act for sheer self-serving pusillanimity) radio
talk show host Rush Limbaugh is now enthusiastically denouncing
the Oklahoma City bombers as "anarchists" -- without any evidence,
or any knowledge of what the word "anarchist" means, except good
old-fashioned Missouri knownothingism -- and demanding that nobody
hold him responsible in any way for that heinous act in Oklahoma, or
interfere in any respect with his Constitutional free speech rights in
a misguided (or malevolantly fraudulent) attempt to prevent more such
incidents.

Fair enough.

To a point, I can sympathize with Rush.  This administration -- the
most irredeemably evil in 20th century American history -- murders
people and then lies about it. With the wholehearted assistance of
gentlemen-of-the-evening like Larry King, "Bill of Impeachment"
Clinton and his crooked, fascistic spouse are trying to use Oklahoma
City as a bludgeon to render any further morally outraged talk
about Waco or the Constitution not only politically incorrect, but
thoroughly illegal.  They have "anti-terrorist" legislation before the
congress at this very minute which will finish off the Bill of Rights
for good.  This worries Rush -- who seems to be shaping up as a
principal target of all this activity -- as it should worry any
American, especially those of us who earn our living through the
exercise of our First Amendment rights.

On the other hand, where were Rush's's worries about rights, First
Amendment or otherwise, when the lives of the Branch Davidians and
their children were being callously snuffed out for the "crime" of
having defended themselves against BATF and FBI storm troopers?
Where were Rush's worries when government assassin Lon Horiuchi used
a scoped, high-powered rifle at Ruby Ridge to explode the skull of
innocent, unarmed Vicki Weaver?  Were his worries tied -- like the
unused half of his brain that would otherwise transform him into a
Libertarian -- behind his back?

Now the final irony, as far as William B. Ruger is concerned, is that
his squalid appeasement of the gun-grabbing Left has done him no good
whatever.  Instead, it has put the scent of blood in the water, and
the political predators are after him much harder at the moment than
they're after anybody else, because they can smell weakness.  It's
entirely his fault, and I have no sympathy for him.

And should it come to pass that Rush is one of those who fall victim
to the dictatorial powers "Bill of Impeachment" Clinton and his
crooked, fascistic spouse want in order to stifle dissent in America,
I'll have a tough time feeling sorry for him, either.  I'll be too
busy trying to survive in a concentration camp that got built because
the one individual who could have stopped it -- with a single
courageous word at the right moment in the summer of 1993 -- played
the bully's toadie instead (a role he learned sucking up to William
Bennett), made fun of the government's latest victims rather than
standing up for them, and waited to defend himself, and only himself,
until 1995, when it was too late.