Since blog reader feedback on the last couple of entries – regarding new Smith & Wesson products – had gone so heavily toward discussion of the internal lock feature on S&W revolvers, I had planned to make that the topic of this blog entry. However, the recent death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy eclipses it for news value, as it did on TV news stations for the past few days, which seem to have been “all Ted Kennedy, all the time.”

There’s actually a connection between the two topics. Kennedy vehemently supported mandatory internal locks on all firearms, and all manner of other Draconian measures that would have profoundly infringed on the civil rights of the firearms owning community…and sometimes did.

We can all understand the visceral reaction he must have had to his two gifted brothers being shot to death by assassins.  What was harder to understand was his blaming of objects for human hatred, and his willingness to punish and dis-empower good people because of the acts of bad ones.

They called him “the lion of the Senate” when he died, but his advocacy of banning private citizens’ ownership of certain firearms because it would somehow enhance the public good, smacked more of “lyin’ in the Senate.”

I’ve worked for decades as a Trustee of the Second Amendment Foundation with SAF stalwart Dave Workman. HERE brother Workman provides a rich trove of links and reading for those who want to refresh on what the late Senator from the Bay State tried to do to gun owners and their rights, occasionally succeeding to a degree.

As you remember the last of the Generation of Princes in America’s Royal Family, remember him whole.  His commitment to civil rights seemed to be limited to the ones he approved of.  I recall Ted Kennedy’s private bodyguard being arrested for attempting to carry a fully automatic Beretta machine pistol into a Government building.  Apparently, the guns he didn’t want the peasants to have were OK for protecting the Royal Family, whose immense wealth allowed them to hire high-priced private Praetorian Guards…

I’m just glad I managed to get through all that without mentioning Mary Jo Kopechne.

1 COMMENT

  2. Uh … you did know that last was in your out-loud voice, right?

    The funny thing is, Ted Kennedy was once a voice against the increasing power of government, up until around 1978-1980. Then he lost his way, became a Federal expansionist, and became one of the Big Three Gun-Grabbers of the Senate along with Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer.

    And isn’t it funny how all three of those believe that THEIR guns are just fine and dandy?

  3. Ted Kennedy was the liberals’ liberal. He championed all sorts of measures that make up what most today think of when one says the words “liberal agenda”.
    He was also generous, loved, helpful, chaotic, and both maligned and respected at the same time.
    I don’t know if the Senator defined the liberal agenda or just embodied it, but he was an untiring champion of removing the teeth from our right to keep and bear arms.
    I personally hate the internal locks on Rugers, which are invisible, as much as I hate the locks on S&Ws, which are visible.
    My primary reason for this hatred is that some paper pushing bureaucrat who rakes in his tax dollar salary, and whose only knowledge, experience, or claim to understanding firearms comes from our sick media is given the go to distort, alter, and potentially render useless our arms. This is not just wrong, it is heresy.
    I don’t care if this devices never fail, I don’t care if people tell me it is a non issue.
    Smith and Wesson is wrong if they think it is just a small group of people who hate their locks-its just a small group of people who bother to take the time to tell them about it.
    Maybe someone from S&W should go to a few local gun stores, and just ask people who come in what they think of their locks. I love S&W handguns, but I think they would have to change their opinion on how people view their concession to gun haters.

  4. Growing up in NH and having only three TV stations of which two were out of Bawstawn, MA Got to hear a lot about them people. Never liked Ted since he was the only one I’m oretty much olde enough to remember much about.

    I guess his only redeeming trait was that he never compromised his ideology on the issues he believed in. Unlike most other member of congress who seem to change with the socks they wear most days. He was never bipartisan it’s being touted, he just found people that went along with him rather than him agreeing with them.

    He won’t be missed by any productive member of society.

  5. I’m personally both amused and annoyed at the current flurry in Massachusetts to re-change the law the Dems passed (to keep a Republican governor from appointing a replacement senator) back so that the now-Dem gov can appoint a replacement for the late Prince Edward, in time to shove a health-care bill down our throats.

    De mortuis nil nisi bonum, as the Romans would have it, but the country is better off with fewer dynastic incumbents, in my opinion. I suppose this Kennedy was no worse than the others, at least when he had his pants on.

    Just another hypocrite jack-in-office, who knows what’s best for the rest of us, while keeping his own privileges intact.

  6. I forgot to mention my concurrence with the posters who take issue with the S&W lock. I will never buy one of those pistols, and I too hear a fair amount of negative talk about them.

  7. As a freedom loving American, I must say that I am not in mourning this week! I will stop short of rejoicing, for the sake of the family! It is a sad thing to lose a loved one!
    That not withstanding, It is hard to imagine anyone who has done more harm to the American way than mr. Kennedy!
    As a policemen you know the absolute value and indeed necessity of having hard evidence! So I will only say that I am firmly convicted that a certain young lady was sacrificed to “save Ted Kennedy’s reputation” and the matter was then hushed up by the “Kennedy Machine”! The tidal charts apparently completely refute his official statement of that “accident”!
    I am sad that as great a man as Kennedy gravitated to the dark side rather than living in the light his church taught! I will stand back and let God be his judge, as for me, I am glad he is gone!
    You see I did not mention Mary Jo Kopechne either!

  8. I’m still howling with laughter over your last sentence. Pat yourself on the back, Mas…well done!!

  9. I never had anything good to say about him while he was alive. All I can say now is, thank God he is gone!

  10. Passing gas is more news worthy than the passing of this womanizing murderer. If Mary Jo would have driven off the bridge, not reported it for 9 hours and Ted died, she would have been in prison for negligent homicide at the very least. Breaking the law comes easy to the Kennedy family, that is how they made their money. It’s unfortunate that the people of Massachusetts thought more of the taxpayer cash that Ted stole for them than they did about the life of Mary Jo Kopechne.

  11. Tom, Ted did compromise his ideology. He said he wanted health care for everybody. He didn’t even try to provide health Care for the Kopechne. However, he did help her abort his and her child. I guess he got it 1 out of 2 on ideology in that incident.

  12. Too bad you ” didn’t mention Mary Jo “, she comes to mind every time the teddy B.S. comes on the tv.

  13. Yeah! He did sportsmen no favors! Its such a narrow group of self interests that try to derail gun owners, and in my opinion one of the reasons there are so many more independents. When these self interest groups try to push their agenda it first hurts the party, and then the country. Still I have to say I have admired his negotiating skills, and some of the legislation he has sponsored although it seems somewhat, “watered down” when compared with his brothers. Mary Jo Kopechne. was always his Albatross. I think we should have a bill for law makers. No gun legislation unless you can field strip, shoot, and understand what you are doing before you start writing legislation for it! How many of these paper pushers understand what an internal lock is?

  14. I’m sure the late senator is now in a very hot place where he would welcome a few drops of the water he helped flood Mary Jo’s lungs with.

  15. While I will mourn his passing, for his family, as losing a loved one is never easy. I will rejoice in the fact that he has departed this earth.

    The man never had to work a day in his life, and didn’t know what it was to be without health care, wonder how he was going to pay his bills, or buy clothes for his children. In short, he was as far removed from the “common man” as the moon is from earth. In short, he, like most politicians, don’t have a clue.

    Now that the drunk, ne’er do well is dead I think it’s time to clean house and vote everyone out of office and start fresh. Also, lets make it so you can’t do more than two terms, in any elected position, without having to go find a real job for at least two terms. No, Virginia, working as a lobbiest doesn’t count.

    May the fat bloated SOB rot in hell, where he belongs.

    Biker

  17. It was no loss to the country. As a matter of fact, his death was a great service to the country. Anytime the news or Internet would have anything concerning his death, I would totally disregard it. Finally, the trash has been put where it belongs. Now, we just need to go to the ballot box this coming election and get rid of the rest of the trash.

  18. Ted finally did something that made America a better place – he left.

    For a movie that seems to be modeled on Ted and his Chappaquiddick crimes, watch the DVD `What Lies Beneath` – a movie about a man who drowns his girlfriend by rolling her car off a bridge with her in it. As should now be happening to the Massachusetts Whale, the dead girlfriend has the last laugh on her murderer.

    I suspect Ted is saying `Mary Jo, have someone turn up the AC; it is hotter than hell in here! Mary Jo – When you sober up Ted, I have a big secret to tell you about this place – in the meantime, meet your new boyfriend Saddam!`

  19. I’m sorry but I am not one who “feels” for the family. They have all sucked off the same tit of stolen goods that Teddy sucked off.

  20. I was saddened to see the Church genuflect before the memory of that bloated, evil monster during his funeral mass. Many bloggers on the Orange County Journal’s piece seemed to think it was sacrilegious to mention Mary Jo because the lack of socialized health care was supposedly killing more Americans than Teddy did. Imagine the evil in such minds.

    At least the media’s funeral charade, orchestrated to put pressure on passing the health care bill, will serve to deepen the polarization between the bed-wetter class and freedom-loving class in this country. The national scene is becoming a little clearer with each passing day, and serious people are now legitimately worrying that the thugs in charge will fabricate a national emergency or event to cancel the 2010 elections and impose martial law, an outcome Teddy might have been proud of.

    If only he’d been able to enact confiscation of guns, why, “true freedom,” the freedom to live for the state’s purposes, could have ushered in the New World Order, which he appeared to work for so hard in his later years. It would have been more fitting at his funeral mass if, instead of the Gospel, they’d read Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor in his memory of his loathing of the common man.

  21. While in a gun store in 1980 buying ammo(during the presidential campaign),I saw a bumper sticker that read “If Kennedy wins,you lose!”.
    The best thing that Kennedy ever did for this nation was to die.
    Enough of this royal family and their worshippers.

  22. God has judged him, and he has been “rewarded” for his actions in life, if he did not TRUELY, ERNESTLY, repent before his last breath.

    And with my understanding of the concet of the Kennedy clan, that would likely happen on the day hell freezes over.

  23. Even in death kennedy got, if he had his version of “HEALTH REFORM” his bill would have taxed all guns $25 per year each and every year . he was a true liar and ahas-been. hw spent his life spending others mone while putting his overseas where US would not touch it!!!!!!!!!

  24. Let’s not vote EVERYBODY out in the next election, but get familiar with the voting records and vote based on that. Ron Paul needs another term,. for sure, the two senators from Oklahom are solidly pro gun, and there is a handful of others out there who are incumbents who deserve another term. The rest of these dirtbags…drop them down the stairs and go on. PAY ATTENTION TO THE VOTING RECORDS.

  27. Gun locks are only necessary to deny unauthorized access to your firearm in your absence. A more sensible solution is to ALWAYS carry your firearm – preferably loaded. That way it is under your control at all times and it might save your life. Most violent crime victims probably did not have a premonition that they might die that day or they probably would’ve carried theirs. Funny how most of us have smoke detectors in almost every room but have never had a fire.

  28. he is one catholic that will rot in hell for the deeds against humans that he is responsible for

    may he forever rest in ……..HELL

    one down and many more to go..

    GOD save the republic

  29. You forgot to mention that Teddy and Thomas Dodd ( a former nazi Nuremberg war crimes prosecutor) had the nazi weapons law of 1938 translated into English, and with a few offensive words about Jews removed, offered it as the legislation that became the Gun Control Act of 1968.

    Yes, nazi laws on the books as federal law in the great USA, land of the free, home of the brave.

    Although I normally feel speaking ill of the dead is in poor taste, Ted Kennedy was filth, he was a treason committing, murdering coward and a whore for Hitler.

    His success for decades in the Senate along with filth like Barney Frank is the chief reason I avoid Massachusetts all together, if 51% of voters approve and continue to re-elect of them, I wish not to visit them.

    That’s my $0.02
    Sincerely
    Van C.

  30. Back in April my son and I spent 6 days in Boston. It was quite a history lesson for my son particularly our visit to the North Bridge. On our last day I asked my son what he would rather do, visit the Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum or do the Sam Adams Brewery tour. Sam Adams it was. Neither of has ever regretted that decision. Nothing like bonding with your son over a few free beers.

  31. I think we should make Mary Jo’s birthday a national holiday. She single handedly kept Ted out of the White house. that makes her a hero in my book and she paid the ultimate price to do it.
    I am sorry to see him placed in Arlington.

  32. All of you forgot to mention another of Teddy Boy’s “achievements….getting kicked out of Harvard for cheating. When I first heard of that SOB’s death, I pictured the scenes from the movie “Ghost” where, whenever an evil person died, those black shroud-like demons would come out of sewers to drag the deceased down to the underworld. Try to keep cool Teddy, you certainly earned your current “position”.

  33. Never cared for him any more than I did for Sen. Metzenbaum or Sen. Cranston.They were all self serving obnoxious louts that helped grow the ever increasing cancerous government that is in our face regarding all too many of whats left of our personal
    liberties. Their mantra would in part read:

    Help the Blacks ,Help the Jews ,Help the Womens Lib.

    Unfortunetly,he is not the only one that brought about these unjust situations that were faced with;unGodly wars were in now!.
    I hope you will also pillory the likes of :Sen Graham (coauthor of so called ‘Homeland Security’,written before the 9/11 incident),Porter Goss head of the Cia ,meeeting the head of the ISI -who sent the 100,000 dollars to the head of the socalled ‘terrorists’-
    on the morning of 9/11 ,Phillip D.( as in DOGFACE?) Zelikow-the head of the 9/11 report who has two citizenships,Sen.
    John Ashcroft’……you will lose yout right’…,The entire Democratic Party that didn’t stop President Bush authored war and of course the rotten Republicans that could have ,but didn’t stop this government cancerous growth when the likes of Newt Gingrich and
    Rush Limbaugh were at the top of the power mountain. and never once called for the AUDIT OF THE FED.
    All to many of the power people in the past 100 years of power have sold us out , including the 66 Senators that voted for the ANTI-GODLY UN back in the 1940s.

    Yeah, Sen. Kennedy,good to see you’re gone. Too bad that which you and so many others in power have burdened us with is still alive ,thriving ,and deadly .
    The GUNS alone won’t bring an end to this march towards Plutocratic Oligarchic tyranny.

  34. […] May not be able to find the article but here is a write up on the subject by Massad Ayoob. Massad Ayoob Blog Archive GUN LOCKS, GUN LAWS, AND THE PASSING OF TED KENNEDY Massad Ayoob on Guns Want to Comment on a blog post? Look for and click on the blue No Comments […]