by Wayne Laugesen
[email protected]

Republished with author's permission, and we're glad to have him on our Team.

Just five months after anti-gunner Robert Howell was videotaped pursuing and beating a pro-gun activist in Boulder, another member of the Million Mom March stands accused of assaulting a champion of the Second Amendment.

Up in Fort Collins, Cherie Trine is waiting for the knock on her door. Detective Neil Hisam of the Fort Collins Police Department told her this week she will likely be charged with assaulting a pro-gun activist who crashed a Million Mom March meeting Aug. 15 at the Plymouth Congregational Church.

"I don't know why the police are pursuing this," says Trine, a 41-year-old day care provider. "I guess the police favor the biggest bullies in these cases."

Rita Davis, spokeswoman for the Fort Collins Police Department, says it's true that Trine may be charged with assaulting gun rights activist George Keifer. Her department has received five sworn affidavits from witnesses who say Trine struck Keifer with a clipboard, causing him a minor facial injury.

"You know, I'm 5' 1", 105 pounds," says Trine. "These are very scary people. They're mostly great big men, and many of them are somewhat fat. They act like bullies and they yell nasty things. Yet they're standing there yelling to the police 'assault, assault.' These are bad people."

The bad people comprise a grassroots organization of Second Amendment activists known as the Tyranny Response Team. They're people who believe new gun control measures will create a slippery slope toward gun confiscation, which would nullify the constitutional provision for an armed citizenry.

The loosely-organized activists stage peaceful protests several times a week, picketing politicians, meetings and any events they believe to have an anti-Second Amendment aim.

So, when pro-gun activists saw an ad in the Fort Collins Coloradoan publicizing a meeting of the Million Mom March, they decided to show up. About 50 arrived at the church with signs, literature and a bullhorn for an outside demonstration. Just before the meeting began inside, several of the pro-gunners decided to attend. The meeting featured a speech by Tom Mauser, whose son was killed in the Columbine massacre. Mauser gets paid $72,000 a year by SAFE Colorado, an anti-gun group, to give anti-gun lectures.

At the door to the meeting, a man was waiting for the gun rights activists. He told them they weren't welcome.

"He asked if we were with the Million Mom March, and we said 'no.' He said we couldn't come in," recalls 30-year-old Drew Wright, of Longmont. "I told him I read about it in the newspaper, and that the ad led me to believe it was open to the public."

Wright and others at the door insisted they be allowed in. The guard held his ground, and called police after a pro-gunner took his picture. The police showed up and asked the pro-gunners to please be on their way.

"One officer said �We'd appreciate if you not go inside.' Duncan Philp (a Response Team activist) told him it was advertised as a public meeting," says Bob Glass, a gun store owner and member of the Tyranny Response Team. "The officer said he couldn't do anything legally to stop us from attending the meeting, but that he'd 'like it' if we would leave. I told him I could appreciate what he would 'like' us to do, but that we were going in nevertheless."

It's understandable why the pro-gunners would want to attend. The Million Mom March organization had advertised this meeting so it could start a chapter in Fort Collins to work on new gun control laws. So anyone concerned about gun laws, who thinks they're un-American and dangerous, would naturally be interested in knowing what the opposition is up to.

And why would advocates of gun laws wish to work in secret? Isn't our legal system based on open dialogue, the sharing of ideas, and the ability to reasonably disagree and compromise? Isn't this what keeps us from shooting each other?

Apparently not in the minds of these gun control advocates in Fort Collins. They wanted a meeting of like-minds only. Meaning they'd like to push through new laws in a stealth manner, void of meaningful discourse. Thankfully, the police knew better than to forcefully exclude activists from a meeting because of their political and philosophical views. So, against their own desire, the police allowed the pro-gun activists to enter.

"About 12 of us walked in so we could sit down and listen to the meeting," says Glass. "And this woman starts screaming at us �We need your names. You have to sign in.' One of our men was videotaping, and the woman who was screaming took a clipboard and smashed it into the video camera, which he was holding up to his eye. The video camera was pushed into his eye causing a minor injury."

Fort Collins police aren't saying much, other than that they may charge Trine with assault. They won't release the police report, saying the case remains under investigation.

Trine, of course, has a different version of the story than the five witnesses who submitted sworn statements. She explains why she was angry that pro-gunners came to the meeting. "It doesn't make sense to have a planning meeting and let the enemy in," says Trine. "We have suffered tremendous harassment from this group. Like I said, they're very scary people." "What harassment?" I asked.

"They show up at our meetings with signs and bullhorns," Trine says. "They say nasty things." Hmmm. Sounds like peaceable assembly to me. The several times I've encountered the Tyranny Response Team it appeared as a group of men and women with signs. Their activities seem like a perfectly legitimate exercise of the First Amendment. The Response Team has always appeared to me as a group that wants to win hearts and minds without force, through the legal exchange of public discourse.

To Trine, however, these are not merely Americans who strongly support the Constitution. To her, they are monsters.

"This is a neo-Nazi group that wants to terrorize the whole community," says Trine. "They're very anti-Semitic, anti-gay, racist people. They might as well be wearing KKK caps. They're like the people who hate government and want to bomb federal buildings."

"How do you know that?" I asked Trine.

"That's what people have told me," Trine says. "Everyone knows this."

To get some proof, Trine placed a call this week to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups. As of Tuesday, the center hadn't returned her request for information that would prove the Tyranny Response Team is a bunch of racist hate mongers.

What she may find at the law center, however, is at least as troubling as her own allegations that are based on "what people have told me." Back in 1996, the law center put out a comprehensive list of "anti-Semitic" hate groups. On it, among militias and Ku Klux Klan chapters, was Paladin Arms - the gun store owned by Tyranny Response Team member Glass.

Just after the list came out, I called Morris Dees, the founder and president of the law center. I asked just what information led him to list Glass's business among hate groups. He had no information. Zero. Zip. Nothing other than a hunch that someone who sells guns must be anti-Semitic. When I explained to Dees that Glass was Bar-Mitzvahed in New York City in 1968, he seemed shocked. I told Dees that Bob Glass was inspired to sell guns because his aunts and uncles died in the Holocaust after Hitler forcefully disarmed them. Not knowing what to say, Dees blamed his staff for the careless inclusion of Paladin Arms on a list of anti-Semites.

Not surprisingly, the Response Team rallies I've seen have included more people of color than are found in the gatherings they typically picket. At a recent public hearing on proposed gun laws in Boulder, the pro-gunners were a far more ethnically and racially diverse mix than the handful of Million Mom Marchers who showed up to speak out against guns.

Despite Trine's slanderous portrayal of the pro-gunners she hates, it's fair that she didn't want them at her meeting. So as they arrived, Trine says, she began insisting that they put their names on a list. "I couldn't get their attention," Trine says. "They were ignoring me. So I just put the clipboard in front of his camera and he starts yelling 'assault.' Then he lowers the camera and he has this black eye. I'm thinking "Oh great, he has a black eye. It must be an old one, and now he's going to say I hurt him.'" Trine insists she didn't smack Keifer with a clipboard. Keifer and five witnesses say she did. Cops may charge her for assault. Not being there, I can't say who's telling the truth.

What's for certain, however, is that Trine hates her opponents. Without basis, she calls them racist, anti-Semitic hate mongers. She does so, without regard for truth, to further her own political cause. She had no business physically confronting Keifer, in any manner, with a clipboard. The pro-gunners have shown, time and time again, that they respect the laws of our land. That's why they treasure the Second Amendment. And that's why they use the First Amendment, which allows them to peaceably assemble and engage in constructive dialogue. Anti-gunners should learn from them, and stop resorting to force.

Wayne Laugesen can be reached at [email protected] or 303-499-4187. He publishes Wayne's Word on http://www.BoulderWeekly.com. Drop by and check him out.