Submitted to the Denver Post Op-Ed Page

         I may just have listened to my last Ken Hamblin radio broadcast. What finally did it was an acutely embarrassing interview he conducted on March 15th with Aurora police chief Jim Everitt.
         Hamblin, an increasingly well-known black neo-conservative newspaper columnist and talk-show host, wanted to know certain details of Everitt's policy regarding the issuance of permits for concealed weapons. It became clear immediately that Everitt hasn't any policy, and that he was reluctant to describe his practices -- a very different thing from a policy -- on the air. And to that extent, Hamblin's interview was good, solid journalism.
         Unfortunately, it deteriorated after that.
         Everitt's answers to Hamblin's questions didn't differ in any material way from those of Arapahoe County Sheriff Pat Sullivan to state senator Bill Owen who'd filled in for Hamblin on the previous Friday. Sullivan's lying assertions were both patronizing and fascistic -- which Hamblin correctly pointed out the following Monday as he played snippets of a conversation that, in a rational world, would not only prevent Sullivan from being re-elected, but earn him a seat in a big glass box like Adolph Eichmann's.
         Yet, instead of launching into a righteous diatribe at Everitt as the self-styled "Black Avenger" had over Sullivan's arrogant remarks, or hanging up on the misbegotten bureaucrat as he deserved, Hamblin displayed three qualities which have nearly made me quit listening before and which have probably done it for real this time.
         The first is sloppy thinking of a variety Hamblin won't tolerate in those he calls "egg-sucking dog liberals". Everitt conceded that he might possibly condescend to grant his godlike permission to someone he believed was in danger, but that he didn't "feel like" it was good for society if everybody carried a gun.
         We might argue with Everitt about several points here, but this is an example of what I mean when I say it's past time to debate on its merits the natural, fundamental, inalienable human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right of every man, woman, and responsible child to obtain, own, and carry weapons any time, anywhere, without asking anyone's permission -- and get on with jailing public servants who make it their business to obstruct it.
         Hamblin -- while grumbling over Everitt's Sullivanesque statement that we may freely carry guns wherever and whenever it will do us the least good, subject only to municipal abrogation and minor police harrassment -- cordially let the "feel like" part of Everitt's answer pass because of his formulaic "might possibly condescend", overlooking the fact that Everitt's benevolant dictatorly concession would have done nothing for the woman whose life wasn't in danger ten seconds before she tried to help murder victim Rhonda Maloney, and who therefore wouldn't have qualified under Generalissimo Everitt's regime for permission to carry the means of self-defense in the manner of her choice.
         Which brings us to quality number two, Hamblin's inability to recall from moment to moment what the Bill of Rights provides -- and that what Everitt or any politician may "feel like" with regard to individual rights is irrelevant. The Constitution does not say "the privilege of some people to be licensed to carry state-approved weapons in a state-approved way shall only be infringed when public officials 'feel like' it might be a good idea". Maybe Hamblin studied the Canadian constitution by mistake.
         But that brings us to quality number three -- probably the source of Hamblin's other bad qualities -- his habit of sucking up (sorry, there isn't any other term for it) to the police and the military, the very people the Second Amendment was written to protect us from. Having had his -- and our -- rights ground underfoot by this badge-heavy Aurora goon, having failed to stand up for them or us, Hamblin made it totally disgusting by moistly fawning all over the semiliterate thug for his "gang policy".
         I don't have time for this.
         I don't have time for anything but the absolute, unimpeded exercise of my rights. That's why I oppose any form of licensed carry: WE DON'T NEED NO STINKING LICENSES! And I don't have any time to waste on philosophical wimps and wussy neo-cons who lick the enemy's jackboots and give the game away just when we're beginning to win -- because they can't resist a guy in uniform.

L. Neil Smith is the award-winning author of 19 books including The Probability Broach, The Crystal Empire, Henry Martyn, The Lando Calrissian Adventures, Pallas, and (forthcoming) Bretta Martyn and Lever Action. An NRA Life Member and founder of the Libertarian Second Amendment Caucus, he has been active in the Libertarian movement for 34 years and is its most prolific and widely-published living novelist.

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