- Upcoming Events
- Concealed Pistol Training
- An Important Day
- Youth Leadership Training
- BARC Update
- CCW Training -- Update
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- Upcoming Events
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July 10, 2001 - 7:30 PM
- LP of Oakland County Executive Committee Meeting. All dues-paying members are welcome. Business begins at 7:00 PM.
- Location: LPM Headquarters, 619 East Nine Mile in Hazel Park, just east of I-75.
- Contact: Chris Pellerito Phone: (248) 373-9411 E-mail: chair@lpocmi.org
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July 11, 2001 - 6:30 PM
- Libertarians of Macomb County monthly meeting. Drinks and dinner at 6:30 PM, business begins at 7:00 PM.
- Location: Miles World Resturant, 17689 Masonic, Fraser, MI 48026, 810-415-4500.
- Contact: Diane Barnes Phone: (810) 774-1625 E-mail: dbarnes98@aol.com
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July 12, 2001 - 7:00 PM
- The Ballot Access Restoration Committee meets the second and fourth Thursday every month -- until we submit petition signatures to the Bureau of Elections to be certified to once again be able to run Libertarian candidates in partisan races. All LPM members are welcome to attend and help with both the planning and execution of our petition drive.
- Location: LPMHQ, 619 E. 9 Mile, Hazel Park (just east of I-75)
- Contact: Nancy O'Brien Phone: (313) 562-5778 E-mail: nobrien321@home.com
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July 16, 2001 - 7:30 PM
- Meeting of the Andy LeCureaux for Hazel Park City Council Campaign.
- Location: LPM HQ, 619 East Nine Mile Rd., Hazel Park
- Contact: Dave Collver Phone: (248) 542-9274 E-mail: DCCollver@aol.com
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July 17, 2001
- Libertarians of Allegan County.
- Location: No meeting this month, see you at the August meeting.
- Contact: Rick Dutkiewicz Phone: (616) 673-5503 E-mail: rdoogie@datawise.net
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July 18, 2001
- Monthly meeting of the St. Clair County affiliate.
- Location: Figaro's is located at 1503 11th Street, Port Huron, MI 48060. TX: (810) 987-3588. Join us for dinner at 6:00 PM. Business begins at 7:00 PM.
- Contact: Richard Friend Phone: (810) 982-7178 E-mail: rfriend@advnet.net
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July 19, 2001 - 7:00 PM
- The Van Buren County chapter would like to invite everyone to their monthly meeting. Dinner will be available at 6:30.
- Location: CT's restaurant, South Haven on the corner of M-43 and Blue Star Highway
- Contact: Bill Bradley Phone: (616) 637-4525 E-mail: free@cybersol.com
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July 25, 2001 - 6:30 PM
- LP of Oakland County General Membership Meeting. Public welcome. Meet for dinner at 6:30pm, business begins at 7:30pm.
- Location: Sila's Restaurant, 4033 W. 12 Mile Rd, Berkley. Sila's is 2 blocks west of Greenfield on Twelve Mile Road.
- Contact: Chris Pellerito Phone: (248) 373-9411 E-mail: LpocChairChris@aol.com
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July 26, 2001 - 7:00 PM
- The Ballot Access Restoration Committee meets the second and fourth Thursday every month -- until we submit petition signatures to the Bureau of Elections to be certified to once again be able to run Libertarian candidates in partisan races. All LPM members are welcome to attend and help with both the planning and execution of our petition drive.
- Location: LPMHQ, 619 E. 9 Mile, Hazel Park (just east of I-75)
- Contact: Nancy O'Brien Phone: (313) 562-5778 E-mail: nobrien321@home.com
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August 6, 2001 - 7:30 PM
- Meeting of the Andy LeCureaux for Hazel Park City Council Campaign.
- Location: LPM HQ, 619 East Nine Mile Rd., Hazel Park
- Contact: Dave Collver Phone: (248) 542-9274 E-mail: DCCollver@aol.com
- More
- For more events, see the online calendar at:
- http://www.michiganlp.org/lpmonline/events.php
- Concealed Pistol Training
by Davil W Aviles
With all the controversy over the concealed carry law
that is going into effect as scheduled. I thought it would
be good for both sides of the issue to better understand the
training that is available to pistol owners. The NRA's
First Steps PISTOL Orientation course is 3 hours and
intended to be taught to no more than 4 students per
instructor. Orientation Goal, is to provide beginning
shooters with an introduction to the knowledge, skills, and
attitude necessary to own and use a specific pistol model
safely. The course covers an introduction to pistol safety,
parts and operation, ammunition and the fundamentals of
pistol shooting from the benchrest position, pistol
cleaning, safe storage, and training opportunities.
Completion of this course WILL meet the pre-requisite for
the advanced Personal Protection in the Home course.
NRA's Basic Pistol Shooting course is 10 hours,
additional time may be desirable in order for students to
develop skills before moving on to the further lessons.
Course Goal, is to teach the basic knowledge, skills, and
the attitude necessary for owning and using a pistol safely.
The course lessons include; pistol knowledge and safe gun
handling, ammunition knowledge and fundamentals of pistol
shooting, firing the first shots, two-handed and one-handed
standing shooting positions, pistol sports and activities.
Completion of this course WILL meet the pre-requisite for
the advanced Personal Protection in the Home course.
NRA's Personal Protection in the Home course is 8
hours. This is an advanced course and the student must
provide documentation of basic pistol skills or demonstrate
basic skills to enter the class, course length may vary
depending on the instructor/student ratio and participants'
abilities. Course Goal, is to develop in the students the
basic knowledge, skills, and attitude essential to the safe
and efficient use of a handgun for protection of self and
family, and to provide information on the law-abiding
citizen's right to self-defense. The course lessons
include; introduction to defensive shooting, basic defensive
handgun skills, firearms and the law, strategies for home
safety and responding to a violent confrontation, selecting
a handgun for self-defense, sport shooting activities and
training opportunities. Completion of this course WILL meet
the Michigan Training requirements to apply for a Concealed
Pistol license.
Classes are now being taught at the South Haven and
Watervalet Rod & Gun Clubs. Other listings can be found at
www.nra.org and www.mcrgo.org.
Back to Contents
- An Important Day
by Tim O'Brien
The following article is the latest in a series of
Op-ed articles written by LPM Executive Director Tim O'Brien
and submitted to news outlets across the state for
publication. This article was printed on the Detroit News
website at:
http://detnews.com/2001/editorial/0107/03/a07-242976.htm
As we celebrate our country's 225th birthday with pomp and
circumstance, parades and picnics and fireworks, it's worth
taking at least a few moments to reflect on some of the
facts (and misconceptions)surrounding our nation's birth
announcement, the Declaration of Independence.
Let's start right out with the date. The final document was
actually adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July
2, 1776. John Adams -- a signer who would later become our
second president -- even wrote a letter to his wife Abigail
predicting that July 2 would be celebrated by generations to
come as the most important date in our history. He was right
about the future festivities, but slightly off on the date.
Not that the exact date would have been regarded back then
as especially important anyway. Most Americans of that era
regarded the Declaration as little more than a formal
recognition of a state of affairs already extant for some
time.
Among other things, colonists had expressed their opinion of
parliament's 3-cents-per-pound tea tax back in the fall of
1773 by tossing three shiploads full into Boston harbor. The
first exchange of gun fire between American militia and
British regulars -- over a "gun control" measure,
incidentally -- happened more than a year before the
Declaration in the spring of 1775 in a couple of little
towns north of Boston. George Washington's appointment as
commander of American military forces had also been made
more than a year earlier.
Despite the concurrence of both John Adams and Thomas
Jefferson (who in later years agreed on little else) that
the document was ceremoniously signed on July 2nd by the
members of the continental congress, historians today
believe that their recollections were, perhaps, a bit more
nostalgic than accurate. It is more likely that only the
president, John Hancock, and the secretary, Charles Thomson,
signed that day. It is well established that the final
signature, Thomas McKean, was not affixed until several
years later.
Although the Declaration itself was officially drafted by a
committee of five, the actual language came mostly from the
pen of Thomas Jefferson.
The document consists of three parts.
The prologue, the most famous portion and, arguably, one of
the most profound statements of political philosophy in
history, is a distillation of nearly a century of natural
rights theory that had grown out of the Enlightenment from
such then highly regarded philosopher/writers as John Locke
and Algernon Sidney.
The ideas expressed were actually ubiquitous and
uncontroversial throughout the colonies, having been refined
and popularized notably by Jefferson's fellow Virginians
George Mason and Richard Henry Lee (the latter being the
delegate who actually offered the original resolution in the
continental congress).
The second section of the Declaration consists of a
recitation of 27 reasons why Americans felt compelled to
separate from England.
It is this section that contains the only substantive change
made by the continental congress to Jefferson's draft. The
body shortened his original list of 28 grievances against
the crown by one in striking in its entirety:
"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself,
violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the
persons of a distant people, who never offended him,
captivating and carrying them into slavery in another
hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their
transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the
opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the
Christian king of Great Britain, determined to keep open a
market where MEN should be bought & sold..."
Contrary to contemporary misconception, Jefferson was well
aware of the incongruity that the sanction of slavery
represented in the otherwise noble principles embodied in
the American cause. The passage was removed by the congress
as a purely political concession in order to form a "United"
States of America. The undeniable reality was that it would
have been otherwise impossible to get several of the
southern states to join.
In the final section the delegates declare "That these
united colonies are, and of right, ought to be Free and
Independent States" and "mutually pledge to each other our
Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."
As has often been observed, it is the winners who write
history. So, the signers of the Declaration of Independence
were destined to become "Founding Fathers." But two and a
quarter centuries later, it is easy to lose sight of the
fact that at the time they were traitors.
That fact was plain enough to them. It led Benjamin Franklin
to respond to John Hancock's observation that to be
successful they would need to hang together: "We must indeed
all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang
separately."
But if these events culminated on July 2, 1776, how is it
that we have come to celebrate the 4th of July?
The reason is simply that July 4th was the date the document
was actually published (or, as they put it, "submitted to a
candid World.")
Of course, in the 18th century news travelled pretty slowly
-- taking two months or better to finally make it all the
way across the ocean to europe.
And in one of history's most exquisite ironies, King George
III's diary entry for July 4, 1776 simply reads: "Nothing of
importance happened today."
Back to Contents
- Youth Leadership Training
by Jason Miller
November 17-18 the Leadership Institute will be holding
a training seminar for young people described as the "boot
camps of politics." The Leadership Institute is a
conservative organization, but much of the training is
applicable to Libertarians.
I have heard positive things from Libertarians who have gone
to this program. I will be attending the November 17-18
workshop. It's inexpensive, and I would encourage other
young Libertarians to go.
For more information:
http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/02TRAINING/012YLS/012YLS.htm
Back to Contents
- BARC Update
by Nancy O'Brien
As of Friday, July 6 we have a grand total of 7,176
signatures checked and logged in at HQ. Our top 10
signature collectors are …
AL TITRAN 692
BEN STEELE III 383
RICHARD JOZWIAK 240
LEONARD SCHWARTZ 203
BENJAMIN STEELE JR. 160
TRAFTON JEAN 160
VIOLET STEELE 144
DAVE COLLVER 113
LLOYD SHERMAN 104
CONSTANCE CATALFIO 103
Thanks to one and all. I happen to know that many members
petitioned like crazy over the Fourth of July holiday but
haven’t turned in their signatures yet. Remember, we can’t
count them until you turn them in.
Please keep in mind that it takes nearly as long for us to
check and log them as it does for you to collect them.
Please turn in your petitions as you fill them. Otherwise
our checkers are going to be buried in work at the last
minute with no time to do their jobs.
Next week I’m going to post how the affiliates are doing in
terms of meeting their goals. Stay tuned …
The next BARC meeting is Thursday, July 12. The BARC
meeting scheduled for Thursday, July 26 has been canceled
due to a scheduling conflict.
Back to Contents
- CCW Training -- Update
by Tim O'Brien
Last week I posted the following message below.
_________________________________________
Now that the new "Shall Issue" law has gone into effect,
there are undoubtedly more than a few LPM members who want
to get a concealed carry permit (CCW).
One of the legal requirements is to obtain an eight hour
training course (including three hours of range time) from a
certified instructor.
Long time LP ally and Brass Roots executive director Mike
Hoban is a qualifed intructor who offers this course -- and
will provide recognized certification to submit along with
your CCW application upon successful completion.
I am hoping to organize enough LPM members to fill one
entire class and qualify for a group discount. The class
would be a one day, eight hour intensive.
I do not know exactly what day (though it would be a
Saturday or Sunday yet this month), where it will be held
(though sites in either Lapeer or Shiawasee county are
currently looking most likely). The rate will depend on the
size of the group (but will probably be around $125).
Please send me an e-mail indicating your interest and I will
get back to you as details firm up.
_________________________________________
I realized when I saw it the next day that I neglected to
include my e-mail address. It is tobrien3211@home.com.
Also, note that a possibility has opened up for a class to
be held at Alexander's in Garden City.
Please let me know ASAP if you're interested in signing up
for a class (either in the metro Detroit area or at an
outstate location as mentioned in the first message) to get
certified for CCW.
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