Did Lewis and Clark have permits for their guns…

OK, it is beyond question that the Washington Post is a gun-hating rag, known herein as the “GHWP”, and is intent on editorializing and opining as much as possible about their perceived inherent evils of gun ownership and that anyone who deems it necessary to own and use a firearm is obviously a criminal in need of rehabilitation or re-education.

Over the past two weeks, they have had articles or editorials every-other-day about the above statement. Even gave that nut job Bloomberg from NY a ton of ink space when he was here to talk about all the illegal weapons his criminals in NY are buying, ostensibly at Virginia gun shows. I’m sure that when he and his liberal friends (especially the ones in the White House and DHS right now) are successful in shutting down what they perceive as the “gun show loophole” then they’ll go after gun shows in Wyoming, or Alaska, or they’ll find some way to make it totally illegal for someone who is “legally able to own a firearm” to sell another person who is legally able to own a gun that they no longer need…in other words, a face-to-face transaction (which by the way is still legal – I can sell a firearm to a resident of my own state who is not prohibited from owning a firearm—someone who is over 18, no felony convictions, etc., and yes, there are ways I can check to make sure the person buying the gun is not prohibited from owning it)…

Just today in the Post, is an article about how Mexico would be a paradise; all beaches, coronas and tiki huts, were it not for all the illegal guns, especially the “assault weapons” streaming across the border from the U.S., being used in numerous drug cartel murders. They even have a neato name for it, the “iron river.” The Mexican ambassador to the U.S., Arturo Sarukkhan (uh, is it just me or does that last name sound vaguely middle-eastern…just saying…) is quoted saying that U.S. law enforcement officers on the U.S. side need to be given a “more prominent role” on the border.

HUH??? What does the border Patrol do? And, isn’t that what we sent two fine U.S. Border Patrol agents to prison for, their “more prominent enforcement” of the rule of law and their unfortunate shooting of a criminal (a Mexican drug smuggler, who in the early afternoon on February 17, 2005 escaped after eluding several Border Patrol agents and in the process of abandoning on a dirt road his van containing 743 pounds of marijuana was shot in the ass by the agents - he sadly survived both their poor judgment and marksmanship).
Today’s article ends with two long paragraphs about the evils of guns, and how the Clinton era Assault Weapons ban needs to be re-implemented so the U.S. can “shut down these weapons and the bulk cash that is providing the drug syndicates in Mexico the where-with-all to corrupt, bride and kill.”

Wow – all that is happening because of the Assault Weapons Ban??? Come on, U.S. gun laws, all 20,000 of them (state and federal) are not the reasons for the Mexican cartels, drug barons, drug problems or drug related murders.


Now, to Lewis and Clark…

The GHWP ran a short blurb about how the Library of Congress (protected by federally trained gun-toting police officers…what, are they afraid that someone is going to walk off with the entire “one-hit wonders” CD collection???) is planning to display a newly located supply list from the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1803-1806. Prominent on the list is the following:

1. 15 Prototype Model 1803 muzzle-loading .54-caliber rifles "Kentucky Rifles"
**************OMG THEY HAD GUNS!!!!!!!!!!!!************************
2. 15 Gun slings
**************OMG THEY HAD GUN SLINGS!!!!!********************
3. 24 Large knives
**************AND KNIVES!!!!!!!!!!!*************
4. Powder horns
5. 500 Rifle flints
6. 420 Pounds (191 kilograms) of sheet lead for bullets
7. 176 Pounds (80 kilograms) of gunpowder packed in 52 lead canisters
8. One Long-barreled rifle that fired its bullet with compressed air, rather than by flint, spark, and powder
*******THIS IS JUST TOO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!***********

Hmmm, that’s a lot of firepower and ammunition…I wonder if the prototype muzzle-loading weapons and the special long-barreled rifle that used compressed air were considered the “assault weapons” of the time, let’s just for the sake of argument, say yes.
Some questions to ponder…

1) Did Lewis and Clark stop and think about the fact that they were taking assault weapons into another nation (the Native American Indians, into whose territories the expedition was to travel already had nations, governments and trade routes…); maybe the Indians didn’t want the intruders with weapons in their lands…

2) Did Lewis and Clark have permits for those guns?

3) If they wanted to have a gun at their side, did they have a concealed carry permit that allowed them to “conceal” the firearm from sight?

4) Would their expedition members be under surveillance by DHS agents?

In 1803, we were a boisterous and expansive nation, not the evil purveyor of death as we are described the GHWP today. We had just completed the Louisiana Territory purchase (in which I was born…many years later) and were setting about to study and colonize our newly acquired property, so I guess the boys (L&C) felt it necessary to be protected, so they brought an arsenal of weapons on their little expedition.

I feel a little like Lewis and Clark when I get into my car and head out to the wilderness of Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, etc. to explore, so, much to the consternation of the GHWP (oh, what they don’t know…), I pack heat…legally of course, so that I don’t end up crosswise to federal, state or local laws about guns.

Lewis and Clark – if you lived today, perhaps your expedition would be described as a “radical extremist” group by the Department of Homeland Security, and you’d most likely be in prison – or maybe Bloomberg would be doing press conferences in your states of residence talking about how you were possibly importing weapons to the Indians and how a better regulatory climate would make it impossible for you to continue feeding the violence in the Indian nations, and make it impossible for you to possess those weapons of mass destruction.

But, perhaps L&C would be busy clinging tenaciously to their religion and their guns...