LPM Online

Contents

1. Upcoming Events
   
   

   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

   
   

   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

   
   

   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

   
   

   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

   
   

   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

   
   

   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

   
   

   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

   
   

   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

   
   

   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

   
   

   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

   
   

2. 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.

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3. 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."

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4. 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

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5. 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.

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6. 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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