Dear reader,

How are you? I am fine. My name is Andy, and I’ll be contributing various features and essays to Gun Free Zone on a regular basis. Now, I dont often enter a GFZ willingly, but the chance to write for one of the most informative and entertaining pro-gun websites in the 2A blogosphere was simply too good to pass up. I’d like to thank Miguel for this unique opportunity, because, while I’ve written hundreds of articles for other outlets over the years (and still do here and there when an increasingly rare thought occurs), I’ve never actually had an established avenue through which to share my musings on the topics that actually mean the most to me and mine (and, I hope, you and yours).

And that’s firearms.

Well, not just firearms. Dont get me wrong — I love those. I love everything about them. Even Jennings has a tiny place in my heart. But I also love what firearms represent. Guns literally mean the world to me, as they are the literal means to preserve the world in which I live — my world. Guns secure and thus embody that most fundamental right to exist as an individual, free (or near as dammit) from the yoke of aggression and its ultimate tyranny.

Of course, that also means that tyrants dont like guns in the hands of thinking citizens, and restrictions creep. But 50 million Bloombucks and 21,000 gun control laws cannot erase 27 words put to parchment 229 years ago. Indeed, the anti-gun movement is failing faster and falling farther than ever before as post-Boomers are booming and blasting and rat-a-tat-tatting from sea to shining desert. (The Pacific’s right out because potato California.) Gun sales are clogging up NICS lines month after month, new shooters are charging thumbs-forward to weekend CCW classes, and the 24-hour mainstream news cycle designed to scare folks into submission is having the exact opposite effect: The public sees more and more clearly the ancient and immutable need for individual self defense in a crowded, chaotic, natural world.

Yep, Gun Culture 2.0 is pushing back. Hard. And it kicks like a motherf****** mule.

Yet far from uncouth, this is a culture of peace, patience, respect, and dignity. We are winning the culture war. Without aggression, without coercion, without threats, we are standing firm in the belief of the sanctity of ourselves. We are winning by educating and recruiting the erstwhile ambivalent, the fence-sitting, the fearful and hesitant. We are winning by forcing our garbage lawmakers to repeal their garbage laws through true grassroots political means, all while exposing gun control (and its exploitive “Gunsense” branding) as a cult of fraudulent, fear-mongering bigotry and hate.

So, you know, that’s pretty badass.

Anyways, I’ll be discussing this kind of thing (and a whole lot more) in the weeks and months to come. Expect gun and gear (p)reviews, lifestyle commentary, half-baked memes, bad puns, rambling tangents, and clunky turns of phrase. I ain’t no poet, after all.

But William Wordsworth was, so I’ll leave you with this little mashup I made a few years ago. It’s still one of my favorites:

Many thanks to Miguel for inviting me aboard, and many thanks to all of you for reading!