Date: 19 May 95 01:31:10 -0600
From: [l--e--l] at [lever.ncdl.com] (L. Neil Smith)
Subject: LaPierre _Apologizes_?

                  AN OPEN LETTER TO WAYNE LAPIERRE
                        -- by L. Neil Smith --

    Last week I wrote you, Wayne, congratulating you on your fund-
raising letter which caused that moral weakling George Bush to
resign from the NRA.  Given the choice between "jackbooted thugs"
and the world's oldest civil rights organization, I told you, Bush
chose the thugs.  "That shouldn't come as a surprise," I said.  "His
administration planned and rehearsed the illegal and murderous raid
at Waco.  Good riddance to him."

    I know you got my message, Wayne; a mutual acquaintance of ours
assured me that you would.  I finished it and posted it to her with
a warm feeling that the organization of which I've been a Life
member since 1973 -- most of that time unhappily -- was finally on
the right track.

    But that was then.  This is now.

    Today, like many another of the NRA's three and a half million
members, I feel like a fool.  It's your fault, Wayne, and I'll never
forget it.  You couldn't stand by the simple, unpleasant truth you
stated in your letter -- that America has become a police state in
which innocent people are routinely terrorized merely for exercising
their rights under the Constitution.  No, you had to waffle and
waver and finally to apologize where no apology was called for. As a
result, the media are full of malicious glee at our expense and the
present occupant of the White House -- who has performed a miracle
by making his predecessor look like a tower of moral strength --
feels he can gloat and strut before the cameras and tell us what to
do with our own money.

    And Wayne, every bit of it is your doing.

    In my letter, I urged you to ignore the fools and cowards I knew
were "crawling all over you, giving you a hard time about the more
assertive position" you were taking -- "precisely the tone that
needs to be taken if the Second Amendment, or our republic for that
matter, are to survive into the 21st century ... They are what
created the political mess we're in," I said.  "They haven't the
faintest notion of how to get us out, and never did."  I implored
you to stay tough and get tougher, Wayne, quoting to you from my
forthcoming book, _Lever Action_:

     Remain the judge of your own actions.  Never surrender
     that position by default.  When the enemy screams "Foul!"
     the loudest, you know you're doing him the most damage.
     Those who _help_ him scream are also the enemy.

    Wayne, the current regime was on the ropes; it was washed up; it
was finished.  Clinton was behaving as erratically as Nixon in the
final days when he was drunkenly telling his sad story to portraits
on the White House walls.  Now you've given him an unnecessary and
revitalizing victory at the moment we were winning a war that has
raged for more than 30 years.

     It's time for you to follow Bush's example, Wayne.  It's time
for you to resign before you do us any more damage.  Do it now,
Wayne.  I'm tired of feeling like a fool because of you and those
like you who lack both convictions, and the courage to back them up
when the going gets tough.

Sincerely,

L. Neil Smith <[l--e--l] at [lever.ncdl.com]>
Author:   THE PROBABILITY BROACH, THE CRYSTAL EMPIRE,
THE LANDO CALRISSIAN ADVENTURES, HENRY MARTYN, and PALLAS
Editor:   LEVER ACTION BBS (303) 493-6674, FIDOnet: 1:306/56
Founder:  Libertarian Second Amendment Caucus
Secretary & Legislative Director:
Weld County Fish & Wildlife Association
NRA Life Member (1973)

Permission to redistribute this article is herewith granted by
the author -- provided that it is reproduced unedited, in its
entirety, and appropriate credit given.