U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “I have been reading, writing and speaking about our national crisis now for almost 20 years, and feel as though I am shouting at a wall,” colleague Jim Simpson advised via email. “So I’ve filed to be the GOP candidate for Maryland’s District 2 in the upcoming 2020 election.”
To that end, he’s launched Jim Simpson for Congress.
I’ve known Jim for many years through our mutual support of each others’ writing. The area where he is without peer is in exposing the cultural terraforming that will fundamentally transform the Founder’s Republic into a globalist hodgepodge where rights are what the government tells you they are. His “The Red/Green Axis” is the definitive guide to documenting the way foundations are exploiting a manufactured “refugee crisis” to reshape America into an alien nation, that is, to effectively erase it.
If he wins the primary, Simpson will run against Democrat Dutch Ruppersberger, an 18-year incumbent who’s an idiot on guns, along with a lot of other things. He was a typical opportunistic Parkland blood-dancer, doing what he could to leech off the story and parrot gun-grabber talking points for political advantage. Along with just about every other infringement you can imagine, he actually, with a straight face, proposes forcing peaceable gun-owners to submit to ammunition background checks as a “solution” to “the violent streak in Baltimore.”
Some Democrat contenders have emerged to challenge the established Ruppersberger machine and the Republican field is crowded. That’s why it’s important to get out specifics on Simpson’s campaign to as many gun owners as I can in advance of the April 28 primary.
To that end, I’ve asked Jim some questions similar to the ones I ask NRA Director candidates. That questionnaire is actually a spin-off from my Political Candidate Questionnaire, which has received some good responses over the years. Plenty will tell us they are “strong supporters of the Second Amendment,” but without narrowing that down to specifics, that leaves a lot of room to equivocate. While it’s true there’s nothing to stop a candidate from telling you what you want to hear and then backtracking later, the explicit answers the questions evoke make it difficult to do that later without being exposed as a deliberate deceiver.
Having seen nothing but consistency between what Jim Simpson says and what he does – for years – I have confidence he’s a straight shooter. Let’s hear what he has to say:
Do you believe that the Constitution is the “supreme Law of the Land” and that the Bill of Rights acknowledges the birthrights of all Americans?
YES
If so, should these rights be proactively protected from infringement by all levels of government? How? By promoting laws specifically allowing constitutional carry in each state and locale.
YES
Please give some examples of gun laws you consider unconstitutional.
1934 National Firearms Act, 1968 Gun Control Act, all that followed. An exception is for convicted felons. While I understand that our rights come from God, not government, and that government is supposed to guarantee, rather than restrict those rights, those who break their covenant by committing criminal acts, can and should be punished and have freedoms, including the right to firearms, curtailed, both as an incentive for positive change, decreasing the risk of negative behavior, e.g. carrying a firearm in commission of crime, and to protect law-abiding citizens from their behavior. Unless fully pardoned, their “rights” can and should be restricted by government.
Please give some examples of gun laws you consider constitutional.
Laws that uphold private property rights. I don’t like it, but if a restaurant owner wants to ban guns in his establishment he is entitled to do so, just as he can require a dress code. Private property is private property.
Does the right to bear arms include the right for any peaceable citizen to carry them openly or concealed without a permit?
YES. With the condition that private property owners (both business and residences) can specify whether or not they will allow it, because their private property rights trump all others on their own property. However, governments often do not recognize these rights. Therein lies the real issue.
Do you believe that Americans have a right to own, use and carry full-auto weapons of militia utility?
YES
Do you agree with “enforce existing gun laws” or “repeal existing gun laws”?
I would prefer to see existing gun laws repealed, with the exception of the Armed Career Criminal statutes, which I believe reduced crime.
Do you support or oppose licensing requirements to own or carry firearms? Why?
I oppose licensing requirements. Generally, they presuppose the government has the power to grant the right, when the right is preexisting, and it is the government’s job to protect it. In practical terms, licensing also gives the government authority to change licensing requirements, restrict or essentially end legal access, which they do to a great extent here in MD and in DC, and finally, it creates a database of gun owners that a future despotic government can, and in the case of Virginia, may well, use to ban and then confiscate privately-owned firearms. However, also from a practical standpoint, states vary in enacting and enforcing gun laws, and law enforcement is guided by state and local law, regardless of its constitutionality. So for example, ten years ago, I could not carry a firearm in Virginia openly without risking immediate arrest. An argument about my constitutional rights to the arresting officer would go nowhere. Virginia now allows open carry (don’t remember exactly when they made that explicit in law). So 10 years ago I was unwilling to risk open carry. Today I can and have. Similarly, many states honor carry licenses awarded in other states. For practical reasons, many people get carry licenses and gun groups lobby for reciprocity. In the absence of the restoration of widespread understanding of the Constitution and Bill of Rights that would be reflected both among the electorate and the elected, this may be the best we can do to assure our ability to protect ourselves in the short run.
What specific gun laws will you work to get repealed?
I would have to study the laws more closely to determine which should be changed/repealed first. I think the whole problem started with the 1968 GCA. But while calling for repeal might get me some headlines, I doubt if there is the political will at present to repeal. That would be a long process – though one I support. Would more likely have to chip around the edges of current gun restrictions. Especially regarding Maryland, I would use whatever influence I have in the state to push for repeal of the O’Malley gun laws. And push for loosening restrictions on concealed carry.
If elected, will you back your words of support for firearms rights up with consistent actions? How?
YES I will, for example strongly oppose so-called “red-flag” laws both in word and deed, and seek to educate some otherwise intelligent legislators who currently support red flag laws. I will oppose efforts to further restrict guns at the federal level. And go anywhere to speak forcefully against efforts of those in power like VA gov Northam.
Do you agree that politicians should be held accountable in their NRA and other “gun lobby” grades for immigration actions that undermine the Second Amendment?
YES ABSOLUTELY. IMMIGRATION IS UNDERMINING EVERY ASPECT OF OUR CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC AND IS PAVING THE WAY FOR A TAKEOVER BY THE EXTREME LEFT.
I’ll be candid—I see two areas where I’d be happy to argue with Jim around a campfire. I believe laws that keep people disarmed after they have been released don’t do any good and if a person is too dangerous to be trusted with a gun they’re too dangerous to be trusted without a custodian.
I’ve also had the argument about businesses creating “gun-free zones,” and note the way banks and social media giants are basically using the market to eviscerate the right to keep and bear arms. I’ve toyed with the idea of giving such business owners a card to sign admitting they have a special duty to protect those they require to disarm, but that’s been more to make a point, although I understand at least one state, Tennessee, has considered making gun-banning businesses liable for resulting injury and death damages. That said, there are tremendous dangers involved when the government can tell a person what they must do with their property, and going down that route could result in unintended consequences.
They’re both subjects for further discussion but certainly not showstoppers here. Looking at his answers, Jim Simpson is for all the stuff we’re likely to promote and against what the Democrats are trying to do to us. Add to that he is one of the only Republican candidates nationwide who understands that the immigration/pathway to citizenship issue is the greatest threat we face as gun owners.
A Republican winning in Maryland’s District 2 is admittedly going to be a long shot, but stranger things can happen, and I want to do what I can to help him gain more attention for his platform.
Even if you’re not from Maryland – I’m not – I urge you to visit his campaign website, Jim Simpson for Congress (https://www.jimsimpsonforcongress.com/). I urge you to tell your gun owner friends about him via emails and social media. I urge you to get involved and donate to his campaign—everything in politics costs money, and if that’s not provided, the information about this unique candidate will simply not get out. I also urge you to press gun groups to tell their members—the primary is but a few short months away and action is needed now.
Bloomberg is constantly pouring Astroturf money into other states – there’s nothing that says we the grassroots can’t do the same with our individual contributions. Gun owners are always complaining about Republican politicians who fall short. Jim Simpson is one of us, a citizen advocate, and he wants what we want. How can we expect fidelity and unbending support for our cause if we don’t show it to those who could advance our interests if we’d only help get them to a position where they can?
Will it work? Who knows until you try? Jim Simpson will be spreading a message that most of the District 2 voters will have never heard before, let alone considered. Wouldn’t it be exciting to find that message, if properly articulated, actually resonates, especially with a constituency that’s been taken for granted for years by an entitled poltroon who’s ever in it for himself?
Please help me support Jim Simpson for Congress. I also recommend that you follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.