“Declare the NRA a terrorist organization and make membership illegal. Hey! We did it to the Communist Party, and the NRA has led to the deaths of more of us than American Commies ever did. (I would also raze the organization’s headquarters, clear the rubble and salt the earth, but that’s optional.) Make ownership of unlicensed assault rifles a felony. If some people refused to give up their guns, that “prying the guns from their cold, dead hands” thing works for me.” Donald Kaul in Nation needs a new agenda on guns [via desmoinesregister.com]

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

138 COMMENTS

  3. You left out the part where he wants to drag a couple Republicans behind a pickup truck until they see things his way.

  5. Not sure how he plans on getting gun owners to that state of “cold fingers” and the state of rigamortis which would dictate a man needs hand prying.

    Honestly, if this whole debate devolves into an actual “war” of some sort, or major acts of a civilian driven skirmishes, I would wager that a battle between gun owners and non-gun owners would be the shortest lived conflict in the world…ever.

    • Exactly. I think it’s funny that a bunch of pansy, wine sipping, brie eating, anti-freedom, anti-American folks think they are going to “force” the gun owners to give up their guns. Good luck with that partner. You really want to go to war over this? You may feel differently once the led starts flying.

      • I love wine, Brie, and my country.
        I also love beer and pizza and despise my government.
        The belief that food choices somehow emasculate you and prove your political orientation weak and treacherous is ridiculous. The idea that the patriotism and nationality of Americans is based on their beliefs is decidedly anti-American and anti-freedom.

      • Hey, I like Brie. Let’s not drag delicious cheese into this argument. Mmmmmmmmm, cheese.

        • LOL gosh I like foie gras but that doesn’t mean I don’t drink beer, and eat rattle snake with the best of em!

          Such a poor poor pathetic man though. I really feel bad for him, all those anger issues. So much misdirected hate… shhheezz

    • “I would wager that a battle between gun owners and non-gun owners would be the shortest lived conflict in the world”. The battle is about making us all non-gun owners. It’s been going on since 1934 and it’s about to get ugly.

      • It’s been going on since 1934 and it’s about to get ugly.

        Well if you look at it as an anti-Constitution war, then it’s been going on since the mid-1800’s and they think that since they won the first round, they’re untouchable.

    • Oh, he doesn’t plan on doing it himself. How could you think such a thing?! No, he’ll leave it to the “jack-booted thugs” of the military. It’s amazing how they’ll denigrate the military, but will still make use of it. That’s one reason I get so mad when I see people on this forum use their terminology. It’s also amazing that they think the men and women in the military would follow their orders, no matter what they are. It seems they really do think that people in the military are automatons, trained to have no free will.

      • These people should be so lucky if those of us in the military even sat out any theoretical conflict. I seem to recall a particular oath about upholding and defending the Constitution…

      • It’s also amazing that they think the men and women in the military would follow their orders, no matter what they are. It seems they really do think that people in the military are automatons, trained to have no free will.

        Why? They follow all sorts of illegal / immoral orders and then blindly claim that they’re doing God’s work and “defending our nation” (though they’ve never been able to explain how a series of endless wars meddling in internal affairs of other countries that pose no threat to us has anything to do with defending the US).

        I always see this BS that the military doesn’t just follow orders, yet that’s exactly what they do. If you don’t follow orders, you’ll be severely punished and if you keep doing it or ignore a big enough order, you’re looking at life in jail or death. Not to mention anytime they’re called out on obeying illegal / immoral orders they always use the Nuremberg defense and hide behind the “I was just following orders!” excuse.

        • Mr. Totenglock, I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I have heard anyone in the US military say that the reason they have participated in the actions in Iraq and Afghanistan was because they were “doing God’s will”, and the orders to invade those places were NOT illegal orders. They were legal orders from a constitutionally mandated authority. As for how they are defending our nation, you will notice that almost all the suicide bombs since the invasion have occurred in those nations, not ours.

        • Invading Iraq (both times) had jack to do with our defense. Fighting just the group involved with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan was justified after 9/11, but not waging war on the whole country. If you think murdering civilians in foreign countries has stopped suicide bombs here and not increased security / awareness in the US, then there’s no reaching you.

  7. With anger and threats like this I understand why it’s the “gun” people I should be afraid of. Ya it’s definitely the honest law abiding polite gun people I am afraid of. Well said Donald.

    • Like the Star Trek post that’s been floating around online says: “Logic dictates Captain, that if pro-gunners are as violent as anti-gunners say, there would be no anti-gunners left”.

  8. Ya it’s definitely the honest law abiding polite gun people I am afraid of. Well said Donald.

  9. Every day I pray pathetic sub-humans like this get the war their evil souls desire. I relish the thought of it. There would be no greater justice than for them all to die horribly at the hands of those they wish to oppress.

    What a pathetic state of affairs the modern world is. In every generation since the beginning of man, people have been able to attack and eradicate evil where they see it, with no such societal constructs as those that demonize all forms of violence (except when liberals want to do it, of course).

    People fail to realize that violence is necessary to balance the world against evil like this fool. And that is the greatest tragedy of this generation.

  10. If some people refused to give up their guns, that “prying the guns from their cold, dead hands” thing works for me.”

    So he’s just advocated, and even called for, my death. How do I go about getting him arrested for conspiracy to commit murder? Add in a charge for each gun owner in the nation, and he should be facing a whole bunch of jail time.

    I won’t even go into how if someone who was pro-Second Amendment had made a similar statement about how to handle gun grabbers, there would be outcry against them throughout the media, you’d have Hollywood stars making PSAs using it as another reason we need to confiscate all guns, and DiFi would be holding a press conference stating how that kind mindset was typical of violence-prone gun owners.

    • He’s allowed to threaten death because he’s a liberal. In a a year or two, he’ll be allowed to kill you too for the same reason.

      see: USSR

      • Silver, did he threaten death? What the hell is wrong with you, exaggerating the offense like that? Isn’t what he actually did say bad enough for you? Why can’t you tell the truth?

        • You remind me of another toadie in history mikeyb. “If the Feurher says 2+2=5 then it equals 5. It’s obvious to anybody with out an agenda or brain dasmage what this man is saying. Just remember, you’ve chosen his side.

        • Mikeb, if you truly aren’t aware of it, the phrase “cold dead hands”, references the desire of freedom loving people to die rather than give up that freedom. An equivalent response would be, in response to “give me liberty or give me death” if a British official said (said in an upper class accent,) “Happy to oblige my man, just line up against the wall over there, will you.”

        • Mikeyb, if given a choice in believing Silver or you, I’ll take Silver every time. I re-read the post and all the comments. You’re definately a 2+2=5 man Mikeyb.

        • I think in this instance the threat was inferred. The author didn’t say I am going to cause harm to you, but it was certainly inferred. This is what would be referred to as a veiled threat. If anything it would be extrude as a terrorist threat actually. I have seen that applied to emails which were less threatening.

  11. To quote a good friend of mine (a police officer).

    “Standing face-to-face and threatening an armed person, telling them you hate them and they should be killed, takes a special kind of stupid”

    • A woman confronted me in a grocery store when I was OCing a pistol about how I was responsible for the murder of children recently. I smiled at her until she commented on it, “Why ma’am, you clearly don’t believe your own rhetoric, or you would be far too terrified of me to screech at me like this.”

  12. And to think I always thought that the 2A was to guarantee the 1A. Now I see it also may stand to protect us from it.

    I’m more thankful for the 2A every day….

  14. Funny, it seems to me that being offered the choice between giving up my guns or death is exactly the kind of situation the 2A was written for.

  16. Kaul’s fellow Iowans take him to task in the comments pretty thoroughly. General consensus is he lost former fans with this one and should have stayed retired and STFU.

    • I’m thinking of sending Mr. Kaul $25.00 in Gift Certificates to McDonald’s…maybe his next Big Mac Attack will be his last one…”i’m lovin’ it”…

  17. The real irony in all of these calls for violence
    is that many of those calling for it belong to
    or support leftist organizations tied to
    terrorism. Some of those speaking out may
    actually be open members. Anybody want to
    bet that this guy sends money to Code Pink
    or ALF/ELF. Here’s an interesting thought
    let’s enforce the laws we got (wow this line
    works with terrorism too) and prosecute
    anyone found contributing to organizations
    LISTED BY THE FBI that engage in
    terror activities.

    • Fortunately, we live in a free society where anyone may donate to anything they like without fear of legal reprisal. The actions you are calling for are in line with the core tenets of fascism, just like Kaul’s are. You are both wrong not. Ecause of the specific actions you advocate, but because you advocate them at all.

      If you desire freedom, you must allow people who disagree with you to do so and to act on their beliefs and convictions. There is no other way.

      • I agree the for true freedom people must be
        allowed to disagree. However, if one party
        is actively campaigning to remove this tenet
        it becomes a catch-22. If you allow the
        disagreement, you stand to lose your rights.
        If you do react, arguably your just as bad.

        In my view, when a person knowingly supports
        (in person or monetarily) an organization
        that openly engages in criminal activity, that
        person is in part culpable for any illegal actions
        done as a result of the support.

        Your argument is based on the assumption
        that anyone can speak out without
        repercussions. Anyone CAN speak out.
        But there are limits, that’s why there
        are slander/libel laws. Criminal codes
        can also apply in certain cases.

        When a person like Mr. Kaul, and others
        reported here at TTAG, advocate targeted
        violence and genocide where would you
        draw the line of acceptability?

      • Imprisoning a man who is committed to the destruction of your God-given right to self-defense is not fascism; fascism is a socialist political system that controls the production and distribution of economic goods.

        Defending your rights with violence is the first law of civilizations: Lex Talionus; allowing, encouraging or otherwise defending those who would initiation of violence against peaceable men is not freedom. It is oppression.

        Men armed with rifles are hard to oppress but men armed with the faux liberalism you slyly advocate are easy targets.

  18. So he wants to ban a politically inconvenient organization, force registrations of persons, confiscate property by force, and kill dissenters?

    Did he also suggest they burn NRA literature at marching rallies and bust our windows?

  19. This guy has had a recent heart attack according to the editor’s notes. He needs to let go of some of that anger before he has another. I recommend target practice to relieve the stress, but after reading this article, I’m not sure this guy has the mental stability to handle a firearm.

  20. Interesting that, when posting a comment, you are instructed to be smart and civil, yet the opinion piece itself is neither.

  23. “• Then I would tie Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, our esteemed Republican leaders, to the back of a Chevy pickup truck and drag them around a parking lot until they saw the light on gun control.

    And if that didn’t work, I’d adopt radical measures”

    He’s just back, recovering from a hear attack. Wonder what precipitated that. You have to feel sorry for people like this because their anger is inside them 24/7. It’s a terrible existence. In his minds, guns cannot be allowed to exist because he knows full well that he cannot control his anger with a gun in hand. He’s afraid everyone is like him. Classic projection.

    Then again, sometimes people like him snap and take a lot of others with them…

    • “Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”
      Ronald Reagan

      • I agree – it’s not that liberals are ignorant, it’s just that they have no moral issue with lying.

  26. What a rebel, no really hes doing such a good job getting his cause known.

    Nah, I kid. Never heard if him.

  27. I wonder how many people he has called intolerant. In my case, he is absolutely right. I’m intolerant of murder, violent crime, and a failure to take personal responsibility. I’m also intolerant of those who would wish to subvert my freedom by force. I’ll tell you what, this guy sure doesn’t look like he’d fare well in any sort of violent confrontation.

  28. Let me get this straight Donald.

    1. You want to commit crimes to end gun violence?

    2. You want to have people declared terrorists without proof of them having committed terrorism and no trial?

    3. You want to do away with the second amendment because you do not understand the wording? (Hint: Ask someone to explain it to you.)

    4. You want to commit terrorist acts against members of the US government and the NRA until you get your way?

    5. You want to confiscate firearms from law abiding citizens and put them in prison if your earlier demands are met?
    —————-
    You sound exactly like the citizen(s) it is recommended by law enforcement to watch out for and to report to help prevent another mass killing.

    • I thought you were going to list all of the amendments he wanted to break to do this. I count at least four.

  29. I wonder if Mr Kaul is willing to do the prying, or if he would send someone else’s son or daughter to that task. I suspect I know.

    • #1 This is the attitude to boycott we need to take moving beyond just complaining to each other. As an American citizen and a gun owner, I’m sick and tired of always being on the defense, taking the moral high ground, and politely trying to calm down the anti-gunners that ant to take away our rights to liberty and self-defense.

      • You’re apparently also sick of the First Amendment and the ideas behind it. The freedom of idiots to print idiocies should be absolute and inviolate. Full stop.

        • Yes and no, while you can’t force someone not to print hate speech you don’t have to sit idly by, boycotting sponsors would also fall under our right of freedom of speech…

        • Full stop yourself. It is my right to boycott any media (especially an agenda driven media I don’t agree with) and their advertisers or any business organization with my time and money. What planet are you on?

          BTW, where did I write in my previous comment that they should be censored or closed down?

        • I support their right to print whatever drivel they want, no matter how much of a lie it is, under the 1st Amendment. However I also support my right to exercise the aforementioned Right and discuss with the people who pay money to these idiots on how I won’t be using my money to support them if the continue to support the lies being printed. Full Stop.

    • Do we have contact information for these folks. Please post…
      I encourage all of you to email, fax or call these advertisers to politely encourage them to advertise with someone else.
      Given the amount of readers we get even a few hundred to a dealership would probably get them to pull their add.

  31. Kaul is a member of the same club of other ‘anti-gun ownership for subjects’ by folks such as Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Feinstein, Piers Morgan, etc.

  32. Recent heart attack? This is the kind of wound-up guy that will be found at the kitchen table one morning in rigor mortis, pointing at burnt toast!
    My advice: find Jesus, make friends with a real gun owner,chill out, shut up and learn something, dude.

    • “… make friends with a real gun owner,chill out, shut up and learn something, dude.”

      Preferably make a friend who has something full auto and belt fed. One of two things will happen, he chills out real fast or proves that he is a psychopath.

  33. So some ignorant doosh with a heart condition and inflated sense of moral outrage wants to pry the guns from my cold dead hands? Go for it!

    • That ass won’t come for your guns himself. Look in his eyes. He has no courage. And I G-Damn Guaranty he never did anything to defend this country.

  34. What’s up with Gannett? I used to work for them more than a decade ago, and at that time they just simply sucked at everything journalism. Now they allow their columnists to openly fantasize about killing U.S. legislators — maybe just maiming? Not to mention the publication, without any real context, of all the pistol permit holders in the readership area of one of their joke newspapers.

    (Not that either of those acts should be illegal, mind you, even though both were stupid. I admit to being a fan of both the 1st and 2nd Amendments, but not quite an absolutist on either. I don’t think the 2nd necessarily guarantees me access to nuclear bullets, for instance, if miniaturization technology advanced to that level.)

  36. Heh. I joined the NRA last night, as a matter of fact. I can’t have you guys getting all the illegal membership fun without me.

  37. Wonder how long my Wikipedia edit on Kaul’s politics will survive. The last sentence about unhealthy eating and heart attacks, admittedly, verges on editorializing and may not even be true. He may have issued fatwas against bakeries, breweries and others as well.

    Political opinions
    Gun Ownership

    Kaul supports the killing of gun owners who would resist laws he advocates to restrict certain currently-legal firearms, and advocated the torture or killing of prominent U.S. legislators he links to gun violence. In an op-ed published by Gannett Co., he called for declaring the National Rifle Association to be a terrorist organization, making the ownership of “unlicensed assault rifles” a felony and “prying guns from the cold dead hands” of those owners who refuse to give them up. He has also called for tying Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner to the back of a pickup truck and dragging them. Kaul, a heart attack survivor, has not called for the murder of makers of high-fat desserts, sugary drinks, alcoholic beverages, or other products linked to heart disease. [1]

  38. I have a better idea. Seeing how we’ve cut the murder rate 57% while making huge gains in restoring our Second Amendment rights over the past 20 years, how about anyone dumb enough to think we have a gun problem / violence epidemic is forcibly committed?

  39. I don’t know if I can laugh & type at the same time. What, did this guy look in the mirror & decide to ban all deadly weapons? Randy

  40. Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! I just love it when some bastard with an agenda fantasizes about sending younger, stronger people on a mission to fight and kill innocent people and maybe die while doing it.

    I thought only Presidents were allowed to do that.

  41. It seems to me that these anit 2A “people” are more violent than they are misinformed. And don’t this “*”s comments constitute terrorist threats? Isn’t he threatening Mitch McConnell and John Boehner? I thought threats against congressmen AND women were crimes.

    And if we are the loons with guns why are these freedom loving leftist bastards anyways the one with the threats?

  44. It seems to me that these anit 2A “people” are more violent than they are misinformed. And don’t this “*”s comments constitute terrorist threats? Isn’t he threatening Mitch McConnell and John Boehner? I thought threats against congressmen AND women were crimes.

    And if we are the loons with guns why are these freedom loving leftist bastards anyways the one with the threats?

    And finally where do they dig up these homicidal pacifists? This Kaul is promoting violence and crimes openly in print without any repercussions whatsoever. But there’s no double standard in effect. No.

  45. Looks and sound like a mad old commie who want National Socialist Monofesto so bad he has a tantrum when any one opposes his and Obama’s views.

  46. Lets see if Kaul, has the guts to disarm me. He talks a good game, but he’s a coward who would hide behind someone else doing the taking. Just like a jihadist, gets someone else to blow themselves up, they never have the courage of their convictions.

    That said, I don’t believe anyone is showing up at our doors to disarm us. They will just try to legislate us out of existence.

  47. Wow Daniel, how positively STALINIST of you. Hysterical liberals like you are a constant reminder to the sane ones of us that liberalism is both a social and MENTAL disease.

    All unlicensed

  48. Here’s my post to that prick’s article at the newspaper. I doubt he will read it, but I had to vent…without calling for the death of another. Personally, I am surprised I didn’t use the word douche bag anywhere.

    Dear Mr. Kaul,

    I will attempt to do something in this response that you seem incapable of doing in your article – I will be civil, articulate, rational and non-reactionary.

    First, I am sorry to hear about your heart attack. I know from family members who have suffered a heart attack or stroke what a terrifying ordeal that is to endure. I sincerely wish you the best. Perhaps not so much for yourself, but at least for your family members. Those comments, honest and heartfelt, are what we rational individuals like to refer to as civility. The word in found in the dictionary. You can look it up yourself. I know you would have expected me to come out and call for your death or to comment that you should have died, but I recognize that people will tend to disagree on items both small and large, and I refuse to call for the death of anyone with whom I disagree as opposed to you. You see, I recognize that the First Amendment does include speech glorifying in the death of another individual – “If some people refuse to give up their guns, that ‘prying the guns from their cold, dead hands’ things works from me.” Such a comment from someone who holds themselves to be educated in constitutional rights is reprehensible. I could be protected by my rights by calling for your death of your, your spouse or your children. But, I will not. And stepping outside of my civility for a moment, the only way they will get my weapons – whose possession is guaranteed by the Second Amendment regardless of your apparent principles to understand the notion of statutory interpretation – is to take them from my dead hands. If you are a man that you hold yourself to be, I will send you my home address and could find the money to fly you to my house to attempt to take them from me. If you are man enough to call for the death of another, you should not hide behind a constitutionally guaranteed right like a pathetic coward; you should be willing to do the deed yourself. Do not claim that you are interested in the protection of the life of people with who you agree and then call for the death of those whose ideals you oppose. That makes you a pathetic coward. If you believe in ridding people – including me – of my constitutionally guaranteed right, do not hide like a coward behind your age, or infirmity or your First Amendment right. Remember, Rosa Parks sat on that bench. She did not call upon others to do it for her. And if you do want to come take my guns, be prepared to suffer the consequences. Stand up for what you believe…or admit that you are a coward.

    You speak of making guns illegal as the enlightened highway towards safety and harmony. On December 14, 2012, a Chinese man, whose name has yet to be released, walked into Chenpeng Village Primary School and wounded 22 children. You can find the details easily by running a Google search. So, under your flawed logic, should we ban knives here in the US? Are the wounds suffered by a child with a knife any less heinous than the wounds suffered by a gun that they do not need to be protected? Do you honestly believe that banning guns will prevent gun violence? If so, please take the time to read a recent article from the Harvard Law Journal – http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf. The article, prepared under the guidance of an university what could never be called pro-gun, showed through a litany of statistics that more stringent gun restrictions do not result in less gun crime (please see the current gun-crime rate in Chicago) and that the amount of guns owned by a populace does not equate to a larger number of gun-related deaths.

    Think that restriction gun ownership will stop there – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4581871.stm. There remains an ongoing discussion in the UK about restricting large knife ownership. Funny how a state with no private gun ownership has more knife attacks than here in the US?

    Did you read the December 2012 USA/Gallop poll that says that 51% of the people polled were against a semi-automatics weapon ban? It is curious that 51% is the same percentage of the popular voted that President Obama pulled in the election. So, do not make this into a political issue. Those numbers alone destroy any argument you may raise.

    Finally, what is ironic is that you – a “journalist” – is calling for an amendment to be gutted to placate a reactionary populace. What if your article, or that of another “journalist,” leads to someone bombing the NRA headquarters out of hatred for guns, and the general outcry results in a push to limit free speech to include such inflammatory language such as yours? Will you them be supportive of such a curtailing of a constitutionally guaranteed right because of a reactionary populace? I would ask for your reply, but I assume it has never crossed your mind.

    Well, I am going to the pistol range. I bought some new Black HIlls Cowboy Action ammo in .45 Long Colt for my Colt Single Action Army. You will be comforted to know that I do not indent to shoot anyone along the way.

    As as stated before, if you want to man up, come try and take my weapons.

    Patrick

    • You should be able to email their executive staff directly…
      That puts it in front of their bosses.

  49. Just as an aside, this is why people should be more bothered by the al-Awlaki killing than they are.

    Kaul is just a hack writing for a rag in Des Moines, but the President now has the power of arbitrary life and death over citizens: all he has to do is declare them terrorists.

    And think about how many times you’ve heard gun owners called terrorists. It’s always been by some nut like this, but what if someone in power takes to the idea? Right now, just labeling a person a terrorist is sufficient to make their rights under the Constitution disappear and they can be imprisoned without charges, tortured, and even summarily executed or assassinated on a whim.

    Whether or not al-Awlaki was guilty or deserved to die is irrelevant. We only have Obama’s word that he was, because the Constitution was bypassed and the whole point of due process is to force the government to prove their case before taking action.

    • Thanks Sanchanim for providing the list of email addresses for our use.
      I’ve taken your advice and composed an email which I’ve sent off to each of the addresses provided. For those that might be interested the text of that email follows:

      To the Staff and Editors of the DesMoines Register,
      I am not a member of your readership. I am however a member of the group against which one of your journalists, a Mr. Donald Kaul, recently issued an implicit threat against in an editorial which your paper saw fit to publish. Being a reasonable man I am willing, even inclined to accept that this is a case wherein a trusted employee abused the trust that his editors have placed in him to make irresponsible and unconscionable statements against a group of Americans rather than believe that his tirade was knowingly sanctioned.

      This does not change the fact that Mr. Kaul’s statements was by its nature a terribly inhuman thing to say, specifically the quote: “If some people refused to give up their guns, that “prying the guns from their cold, dead hands” thing works for me.”

      Our nation was founded on civil discourse and Mr. Kaul’s words are anything but. While your employee has every right to hold a political point of view that opposes private firearm ownership he has no right to incite others to violence against a group of people that he disagrees with. In order to avoid tautology I will stop short of drawing the obvious parallels that his opinion calls to mind. Frankly the first statement made in Mr. Kaul’s article regarding the characterization of the NRA as a “terrorist organization” might be legitimately considered libelous. I am in no position to prosecute such a claim but I do fall solidly into the second aggrieved group that of law-abiding citizens whose liberties Mr. Kaul wishes infringed upon unto the point of their death. An intelligent person could prevaricate all day long over the semantics of this article but only if motivated to defend it because that same intelligent person is capable of understanding that however it might be possible to read Mr. Kaul’s editorial his message is clear; Mr. Kaul is less concerned with my and others right to own firearms than he is with the fact that if pro-gun Americans were rounded up and killed the debate would end along with any onus to defend his point of view logically and responsibly.

      I may only be a single individual but I sincerely doubt I am the only one at the moment who feels insulted and quite frankly hurt by Mr. Kaul’s unfeeling antagonism. He has a right to his own opinion but the DesMoines Register has an obligation not to endorse such hateful and hurtful propaganda. For this reason and the others which I have enumerated I am respectfully asking that you, the editors of the DesMoines Register, take action to correct the damage done by Mr. Kaul’s moment, and I am being charitable in that description since the process of writing and bringing to press this editorial obviously represents far more time for consideration than that, of blind rage.

      Specifically I would like to join the no doubt countless others in asking that you take the following actions to correct the situation:

      1. First and foremost a retraction of the paper’s support for Mr. Kaul’s bilious beliefs in the form of an apology to its readership and to law-abiding pro-gun Americans everywhere.

      2. Secondly, mostly as a matter of form, I feel obligated to add my voice in support of any calls for the censure of Mr. Kaul by your paper.

      3. Third and finally, though I recognize that absent a willingness to terminate Mr. Kaul’s professional association with your paper this might prove impossible, should it lie within your power it would not be amiss were Mr. Kaul required to print an apology/retraction of his own.

      In closing I’d like to once again reinforce that it is not anger that I, like many others, have experienced in response to this article but rather it is disappointment. Regardless of what Mr. Kaul and other anti-gun Americans might have you believe the vast majority of pro-gun individuals are, like the vast majority of their anti-gun counterparts nothing more than civil adults whose opinions differ. Though heightened emotion has recently taken hold of many Americans it is still rare to hear such vitriolic and personal attacks from either side of the argument. If those invested in this debate hope to make any progress or hope to perhaps reach the ideal state of public policy in a Democratic society, the elusive compromise then those individuals which alienate their opponents through personal attacks and demonization tactics must be responded to by members of each viewpoint. This response must as a matter of course come in the form of a swift and uncompromising expression of the fact that “civil people do not comport themselves in this manner. Doing so is unproductive and continued behavior of this manner will provoke consequences not only on the professional life that you lead but upon your credibility and the tolerance for your input of both sides of a given debate.

      I’d like to of course take the opportunity to thank those who have taken the time to read my request for both their time and their consideration. While I do not anticipate a personal response I will patiently wait for the outcome of this situation by following the DesMoines Register’s editorials and other news over the next few weeks.
      Sincerely,

      Joseph ——–

      P.S.
      Should this email appear in any form in the DesMoines register or any other publication I ask that you not use my surname; Instead please feel free to attribute this email or any quotations you might wish to draw from it simply to “Joseph.” Once again thank you for your time and consideration.

        • Thanks for the endorsement.

          I should point out though that hundreds of thousands of other gun owners are out there living their lives politely and reasonably. Any one of them (us) could easily be author that email and I suspect that the other emails that the DesMoines Register will be getting will overwhelmingly be in the same civil and respectful, if chiding vein as mine than will be in the thoughtless ranting format that Mr. Kaul represents and honestly likely expects (or even desires) to receive.
          Doubtlessly we’ll see a retraction on the part of the DM Register though not on the part of Mr. Kaul. Equally likely is that the inevitable retraction won’t be accompanied by quotes culled from the thousands of emails like mine but from the few dozen threatening and insane sounding rants they’ll receive.
          Polite intelligence contradicts the narrative of the “gun nut” and anti-gun activists have worked far to hard to propagate that misleading stereotype just to redress their years of slander over a few thousand polite and well reasoned requests to do so.
          As the song goes – “Sad but True.”

          Thank you LSUTigersFan for taking the time to read and reply to my thoughts, and thanks to anyone else who has likewise read.

  52. What’s funny about these kill the gun owners folks is that they always suggest someone else should do it. If they’re so into this why aren’t they doing this themselves. Cowards.

  53. Just so we’re clear this anti-gun clown has gone straight to advocating murder, specifically mine, even if he doesn’t know me by name.

    Yeah. Gun owners are clearly the problem.

  54. This is my local newspaper. I am ashamed but not surprised. It just shows why I haven’t purchased a newspaper in years.

  55. The closer he would get to his goal (destroying freedom….and the means to protect it), the greater the chances he would get shot.

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