Scooter McGee Show “Paranoia IS Patriotic”, Larry Pratt, April 12 (?), 2013
Station: www.ustream.tv/channel The-Scooter-McGee-Show-Paranoia-IS-Patriotic
Show: The Scooter McGee Show “Paranoia IS Patriotic”
Guests: Pratt
Link: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/The-Scooter-McGee-Show-Paranoia-IS-Patriotic
Date: April 12, 2013 (?)
Topics: Gun Owners of America, Executive Director, Universal Background Checks, Second Amendment, U.S. Constitution, County Sheriffs, Lobbyist, Grassroots, Federal Agents, Arrest, Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Forest Service, Department of Education SWAT Team, Men in Black, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), Wyoming, Student Loans, Weld County Sheriff John Cooke
HOST SCOOTER McGEE: A lot of speculation, especially when it comes to what’s going on in the world of guns. We’re also seeing what’s REALLY going on in our nation’s capital and keeping them honest and keeping our rights to keep and bear arms, of course. Larry Pratt, Gun Owners of America, joins us back on the Scooter McGee Show! Welcome back!
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF GUN OWNERS OF AMERICA, LARRY PRATT: Hey! I appreciate being with you, my friend! Thanks so much!
McGEE: You’re there, in the trenches. How can people who are otherwise on your side, but can’t be there with you in the trench, how can they help you?
PRATT: Well, we’re a grassroots lobby, and we depend very heavily on email that our members can send. This is a free service and you really don’t have join and send that very expensive twenty dollar membership for a year. You can just go online to gunowners.org and sign up for the alerts, which, admittedly, have been coming out about daily lately, because of the incredible flow of legislative activity. As things were developing, we were letting people know, embedding an email in the alert so that they could fire that off and tell their member of Congress what it was they wanted them to do, or to not do. So, gunowners.org is the place to get information and action
McGEE: Before we get anymore bad news, give us the good news coming out of the trenches.
PRATT: Well, I’m very encouraged by the number of sheriffs that, –it’s at least pushing 400 now, that have said– there’s a spectrum. At a minimum, they’re saying they’re not going to cooperate with any unconstitutional gun grabs that the federal government might participate in. And at the other end of the spectrum, sheriffs are saying, “Not only will I not cooperate, but if the Feds are doing something unconstitutional in my county, particularly a gun grab, I’ll put them in jail.” But they’re also addressing other issues where the Feds act unconstitutionally and threaten to incarcerate citizens of their county, the sheriffs are interposing themselves and saying, “If you try to do that, you don’t have authority, and you’re not going to do that in my county, and if you try it, I will arrest you.” This has happened in confrontations with the Forest Service, BLM, the Food and Drug Administration, and of course, the ATF – the gun police. So, that’s kind of encouraging. You mentioned one of the objections, there are other sheriffs and other elected officials, that will say, “Well, the sheriff is there to enforce the law, he’s not supposed to be setting himself up to as a constitutional judge or scholar.” Well, I’m sorry, but there is a little problem here. The Sheriff takes the same oath to uphold and protect the Constitution as do legislators, as do presidents, as do members of Congress.
They all take the same oath to uphold and protect the Constitution. And so, the sheriff would actually be violating his oath of office – so help him God — if he were to not use his judgement and – if for instance, a number of these sheriffs are saying, “Mr. Federal Agent, I don’t see authority for your Food and Drug Administration in the county, and if you try and arrest that farmer for producing raw milk, I’m going to arrest you.
McGEE: But they do arrest the – Larry –
PRATT: And they’re not kidding, and that stops the Feds, and it means that if you live in the right county the Federal government is now being held at bay and forced to live more within its limits of – imposed on it by the Constitution.
McGEE: Yeah, but Larry, we are seeing – again, as you made reference about the raw milk, we are seeing farmers being arrested for the raw milk. And here’s my dilemma in Colorado. Colorado’s Second Amendment is even – it’s not as broad as the United States’. It’s more defined. And it says, in Article 2, subsection 13, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be called into question.” And if you are, you’re the criminal
PRATT: Exactly!
McGEE: And we’ve seen the photographs –
PRATT: And I think that would give sheriffs a very strong hand in telling the Feds, “You’re not going to be doing any gun confiscation here in my county!” And you’ve got – what is his name, Clark?
McGEE: Sheriff John Cooke.
PRATT: Cooke, is one of the sheriffs in Colorado who’s taken a very strong stand on what he thinks the limits of the Federal government are. And that’s very encouraging that he’s not alone. He may be alone in the state –
McGEE: No, we have— it’s either thirty-two or thirty-six sheriffs, I forget. It’s my dyslexia. Let me google it while you keep talking, but essentially, Sheriff Cooke along with thirty-two to thirty-six other sheriffs standing and uniting behind him, out of– . I believe we either have sixty-two or sixty-seven sheriffs here in Colorado. Let me Google that, real quick –
PRATT: There you are. Approximately half of the sheriffs –
McGEE: No, just a little over half, which is good news, and hopefully more of the other sheriffs, with now over half speaking up, maybe they’ll—you know, they may still be afraid and – because we know about the intimidation tactics that are going on as well.
PRATT: Well, and one of the big instruments of intimidation is if they had taken money from the federal government – some sort of Justice, Law Enforcement funds that are doled out from Washington. Then, if Washington gets ticked at them, Washington can pull that money. So the best way to resist that kind of blandishment [sic] , is to simply not take the money to begin with. But if they have been taking it, to take measures to withstand the impact in the event that the Feds do pull the money. I was really pleased to hear the Secretary of Education to the state of Wyoming address a group and said that they were doing a very exhaustive study to see how they would be able to find a way to operate the state’s education programs without federal funding. And one of the things that they were finding was that, if we did not take federal funding, there would be a lot of expensive things that they would not have to do that they had been required to do because that was the condition of getting that federal money. But they didn’t see it as helpful for their educational mission. And I think the sheriffs would be in the same boat. Maybe they’re not going to be able to get an MRAC armored vehicle that can withstand an IED –
McGEE: Right!
PRATT: Um, that’s probably not something that the sheriff department needs.
McGEE: That’s not something we need! No we need sheriffs and police officers who walk a beat, not who are surrounded in these, you know, ever-omnipresent assault vehicles, and in seventeen different layers of black, shaved heads, no necks, some eighty-five pounds of battle gear, you know, to serve a warrant because you failed to show up in court for a parking ticket
PRATT: Well, it can get pretty absurd. There was a case last year, a young woman looked outside and realized that her residence was completely surrounded by the Men in Black. And when all the commotion finally subsided, it turned out that that was the Department of Education SWAT team, and they were coming for her because she was delinquent on her Education [loans].
McGEE: Oh, on her student loans!
PRATT: Exactly. Now, the fact that in the past creditors were able to garnish your wages, put a lien on if you own your house, repo[ssess] your car–. Those are actually sensible, measured, equivalent responses to the problem. But now, if they have a SWAT team, they figure they got to use it, or else why do we ask the taxpayers to spend all this money on –
McGEE: And, when it comes to budgets, remember we spent a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars last year and we increase the budget every year and we have to justify it by spending it, and using it and—oh, my god, Larry. You’re absolutely right, again.
PRATT: So, off we go and the Department of Education is now using a SWAT team to collect delinquent student loans. Frankly, that’s where we need sheriffs. The sheriff needs to come in and say [affecting a ‘good ol’ boy, southern accent], “Boy, I don’t think you ought to be doing that.” And make sure that the boys understand that the sheriff is serious as a heart attack, that he is just talking smooth, and that he is not going to let them do that
McGEE: Right. Larry, as you’re bringing up the finances and economics, of course, Monday – it’s tax day. And why are you in Colorado? Are you secretly a Colorado resident? Are you some shill that, you know, you’re fake living out there in Virginia. And what are you doing?
PRATT: [chuckles] Happily, I’m out there in Durango. I’ve been invited to speak to a number of groups. I’m not exactly sure where I’ll be. Happily, Dave Sally is arranging all that. But we’ll try to get that posted at gunowners.org and out to as an alert to people on our email list [… Scooter pitches for people to sign up and donate on gunowners.org] Yeah, most of those alerts go out dealing with legislation, primarily in Washington, and admittedly they’ve been kind of fast and furious for the last week or so, because of the increased pressure against the Second Amendment from the Congress and this administration.
