Aaron Russo for the Libertarian Nomination -- and for President

by Angel Shamaya
Founder/Executive Director
KeepAndBearArms.com
[email protected]

May 6, 2004

In this election year, America faces a number of important issues. Voters have another opportunity to choose the candidates they trust to protect their rights and steer our nation back in the direction of what it was designed to be: a Constitutional Republic.

Personally, for many years, the primary criterion on which I evaluate a candidate is, "Where does he/she stand on the Second Amendment? To what extent does she/he respect and support the right of the people to keep and bear arms? And from available evidence, how does he or she define the last four words in the Second Amendment: 'shall not be infringed'?"

My reason for measuring candidates based on these questions is elementary. A politician who doesn't trust an armed populace is a politician who doesn't trust the people he or she claims to want to represent. Such mistrust suggests a character of superiority -- that he or she knows what is best for you, and that government ought to mandate your defenselessness for your own good. Such mistrust, in my view, makes a politician untrustworthy with our gun rights, and with all of our rights. Politicians provided the authority to direct the course of a great and free nation ought to trust The People. It's that simple. Going after people who criminally misuse firearms to violate the rights of others is a very good idea, and I am all for it. Going after lawful, peaceable people's gun collections or for how they choose to keep and bear arms, on the other hand, is the mark of a tyrant. Period.

Our Right to Keep and Bear Arms has been betrayed at every turn by politicians of both "major" parties. Democrats have, for the most part, overtly endorsed and actively worked to pass "gun control" legislation -- which is really "victim disarmament" legislation. There's no question that a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congress would continue their assaults on our Second Amendment rights.

Meanwhile, while Republicans have claimed to support our rights, they, as a party, have instead compromised at every turn. The Brady Bill, the semi-automatic rifle and magazine ban -- every major piece of "gun control legislation" passed in the last 50 years -- would have rightly gone down to defeat had Republican politicians stood firm in opposition.

In confirmation hearings before the US Senate, Attorney General John Ashcroft claimed to support the Second Amendment -- while advocating renewal of the semi-auto rifle and magazine ban mischievously named the "Assault Weapons Ban."

President Bush also publicly advocates extending the Ban -- even though it has had no effect on crime, and even though he allegedly supports the Second Amendment. And Mr. Bush has dropped the Gun Rights ball in many other ways, which I outlined in a letter to his campaign manager in March: http://KeepAndBearArms.com/information/Item.asp?ID=3660

In 2000, I endorsed George W. Bush's candidacy. I did so after wrestling with the question of whether he could be trusted to press the claims of gun owners to the full expression of their Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

This year, I will cast my presidential vote for a better qualified candidate. As I cannot, in good conscience, endorse either Bush or any of the Democratic presidential hopefuls; it is time to take a close look at third party and independent candidates. Of the field of candidates who have declared their intention to run for President, there is one who already stands apart from the crowd.

I am endorsing, with full confidence that he can be trusted to stand up for the rights of law-abiding gun owners, Aaron Russo to receive the presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party at its national convention later this month. Of the small pool of LP candidates who have a chance at getting the nomination, Aaron Russo has the best chance of doing the most good for the Libertarian Party and for gun rights as a result.

Over the years, Aaron Russo has been a defender of the Second Amendment. He's stood against infringement of our Right to Keep and Bear Arms by government any level, without exception and without compromise -- and he's done so as a Hollywood insider, where hating firearms ownership for the peasantry is all the rage.

Additionally, Russo brings to the 2004 presidential campaign a background in film production and marketing -- six Oscar nominations prove his acumen -- that lends itself well to actually getting the facts in front of the American people and offering them a real choice. His campaign is reaching out to Americans on a greater scale than any previous Libertarian Party effort, and offers gun owners a chance to actually play a key role in the election's outcome. I encourage you to review his website, read his communications, watch his online video statements, review his television commercials and to support him. http://www.RussoForPresident.com/

Can a third party candidate win the presidency? Currently, it's a long shot. So was Founding our nation, and I am glad those who chose to lead the effort made the choices they made, however unpopular they may have been. In my opinion and in the opinion of more people each year, it is time, and past time, for gun owners to: a) stop rewarding politicians who take our support for granted and then sacrifice our rights on the altar of political expedience; and thus b) start supporting candidates who truly stand for the Bill of Rights. Each of the two "major party" presidential candidates is a police statist to some degree. Aaron Russo is a Bill of Rights-ist. My choice is easy.