Steve Lee, the Australian Gun “Moderate”

After I posted this blog, “Steve Lee Likes Guns and Government Gun Control,” I heard from Steve. So did many other pro-gun bloggers who were critical of Steve. In this interview televised on Australian television, he clearly came off as a suck-up seeking fame and fortune while selling out to the idea of government gun control and limitations on ownership. This letter that he sent to another writer was strikingly similar to the first email he sent to me.

Many folks were fawning all over his (nice) song and video, and they didn’t bother to care that he was selling the ideas of Australian gun control in a television interview. Some of us did pay attention.

This is a long story, but only I agreed to give him a platform for clarifying his views because I thought it would be interesting to readers no matter what my judgment of his views might be. I said I’d send him a list of interview questions that he could answer, and I would publish it here on my website and at LewRockwell.com. I was only interested in the truth, and I was willing to listen to any interesting clarifications. I am always open to unlimited discussion on the gun issue.

In the meantime, I got hate emails from some of his pals exclaiming that I must undo the negativity that had befallen Steve – it was all my fault (and every other writer’s fault who linked to his interview that tells the clear story). Here’s one email I received:

You REALLY need to fix that Steve Lee stuff on your website. Steve is not anti-gun – his comments were taken way oout of context. What you have written on your website does nothing to help our situation here in Australia. Steve Lee and The Shooters Party are working very hard to improve the situation here and these comments you have about Steve are doinbg the exact opposite.

Please fix these comments. I understand that Steve has contacted you already but it needs to be rectified now!!!

Steve’s interview was so poorly done (worse than his original interview he tried to clarify) that I felt that to run it would place him in a very unfavorable light. Steve claims to be a guy who wants to carry a moderate message to the people, as opposed to the “extreme” (unyielding) message presented by us hardcore gun folks here in the U.S. Steve is 100% ignorant of history, the realities of disarmament, and American gun culture. He came off as a guy who was concerned with nothing more than capitalizing on the popularity of his YouTube, and he wanted to use me to advertise for him. He wants to be invited to be a “spokesperson” for gun ownership here in America. He wants to sell records and gain attention. He has big dreams of being “somebody.” For those reasons (and more), I decided not to run the interview this morning. Being armed in defense of your person, property, and family has a far bigger meaning that can never be understood by people like Steve seeking Internet-fed celebrity status.

Steve thinks we all have to “get along” and not criticize him because he is fighting for our freedom. He says we need to be moderates. He thinks we should not criticize his very unmistakable words. Yet he admits that he cannot dare say he has guns for self-defense, because if he does, the Aussie police will show up at his door and confiscate his guns. Steve has chosen slavery because the has been given the “right” to own guns for sport. He likes being a slave because he can still have his occasional bread and circuses as permitted by his government. Steve is like most of the moron masses in that he is willing to sell his soul and his freedom for bits of bread and a few “privileges” here and there.

After realizing that I was right when I told Steve that his interview would not be received well in America (a place where there is a gun behind every blade of grass), he wrote me to say he doesn’t want me to publish the interview. Too late – it had already hit the cutting room floor. Of course I won’t publish Steve’s words, but here is the intro to the interview written by me.

Australian musician and gun lover Steve Lee became an instant Internet phenomenon when a video song he recorded, titled “I Like Guns,” was posted to YouTube in December 2009. Steve’s video was a sensation for several reasons: The song has a nice hook, and Steve has a charming Australian accent and pleasant good looks. Furthermore, the song was a mega-hit in America because, as author Clayton E. Cramer puts it, guns are as American as apple pie.

Americans who are steadfast in their belief to defend their life, liberty, and property are extremely devoted to the notion of gun ownership. They understand the history of totalitarian governments, and how they disarm the citizenry before they can control and confine free people, or, in the worst case, perpetrate mass murder (see R.J. Rummel’s Death by Government on democide figures). Perhaps there is only a small percentage of America’s citizenry completely devoted to their right to own guns without government restrictions, but they are passionate and unwavering, and they speak in volumes much louder than their numbers.

As the author of this interview, I will reveal my view on gun ownership, as it is uncomplicated: I am unforgiving of anyone – especially the allegedly pro-gun yet pro-permit Republican types – who thinks that we need, or should have, a series of licenses and permits (permissions from self-serving authorities) in order to stand prepared to defend ourselves. Anyone who thinks I should have to grovel at the feet of local establishment officials to be granted government licenses in order to exercise my natural rights to defend my life and property is on par with Satan. Elected officials cannot and will not defend me, so I will do it myself, whether or not their authoritarian-tainted paper with my name on it gets their stamp of government approval. And how dare those citizen tyrants who lecture me on the necessity of official government licenses, operating with their minuscule knowledge of the Constitution, the Second Amendment, the traditions of our American roots, and natural rights. And these wretched people believe they are acting favorably to the self-defense view by telling the rest of us they support gun rights if and when our privileges are fully in line with all state permissions and enforced by the jackboots of arbitrary government laws.

As gun advocate Ted Nugent has openly stated, the Second Amendment, along with the understanding of natural rights, is so obvious that it is insane that this issue is an argument. My view: Second Amendment or not, no one should ever declare statements, or issue passes, licenses, or whatnot, that tell another individual where, when, and how (or if!) they can defend themselves (obeying private property rules, of course). How politically incorrect has it become, even among the “pro-gun” Republican-conservative types, to insist, as I do, that there should never be any limitation whatsoever on the ownership and carry habits of firearms, and that anything else is undeniably totalitarian. The NRA has long been limp on this issue. GOA (Gun Owners of America) is better, and JPFO (Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership) is unyielding.

In January 2010 I blogged a post at karendecoster.com that criticized Steve Lee’s interview with A Current Affair, an Australian current affairs program. [See interview here.] Bloggers all around the Internet did the same. In the interview, Steve appears to come off as supporting Australia’s gun controls laws as “a good thing.” Many of us saw Steve as embracing guns as a fun hobby while reducing their real value – protection from crime and tyranny – to mere background noise. Steve’s response was to write several of us to try and explain his views. He states that he was edited in such a way that made him appear to support gun control in Australia, at least at some level. Looking at his bimbo interviewer, and knowing the interview was a product of the socialistic Australian media, one can believe that the purpose of the interview was to make Steve come off as looking like a nut, and perhaps prompt him into appearing to support his country’s gun control efforts. Always, the media tries to paint people who are passionate about guns as “the fringe element.” In America, gun-toting dissidents are smeared as anti-patriotic “right-wing extremists,” and they are painted with an assortment of negative connotations.

Therefore, I decided to give Steve this forum to air out his views. I have some questions to ask him that will help to clarify his views on gun control in his own country, as well as on gun rights overall. I think his American audience would like to see his response in his own words.

In the interview on Australian TV, the interviewer brought up the Port Arthur massacre of 1996, and he responded with, “it was reflected on gun ownership at that time….it was a good thing after that they tightened a lot of the laws up and made it a lot harder for people like that guy to get their hands on guns, which is a good thing.” The Port Arthur incident was not a reflection on gun owners. The killer, Martin Bryant, was a lone lunatic who was not a “gun owner” as us responsible and serious gun owners would define that term. And in fact, Bryant was said to have a subnormal IQ (estimated at 66), he was deemed mentally handicapped, and he was receiving a disability support pension from the government. How does Steve manage to lump him in with legitimate “gun owners”?

In the TV interview, Steve also said, “a lot of people shouldn’t be able to get guns, and I think the Australian gun laws have done a good job of that…..they’ve made it harder for people to get firearms…” And he followed that with, “so I think it’s good.” And he blamed me, and other critical bloggers, for his bad press.

In response to his email today telling me to NOT (his caps) run the interview, here was my response:

After a SHORT consideration, I’m NOT running it anyway, Steve – in case you hadn’t figured that out already. So whoever advised you on this bullshit (one of your buddies who has been sending me hate mails?) is behind the game. You are seeking fame & fortune, and you are looking for people like me, with a large readership, to give you a launch pad, especially here in the United States.

I will NOT give you that launch pad – you are ignorant of history, you are clueless about American independence and gun culture, and yet you want to come here and have people worship at your feet while you spread your suck-up message and talk about MODERATION on the gun issue? MODERATION? Fuck that, pal. Read about American colonial history and then tell me about fucking moderation. Read the intro to my interview about “death by government,” and then tell me about your plans for sucking up to government authorities and the media to win yourself a spot of fame and sell a few records. You spent weeks writing people all over the Internet, begging them to listen to you and publish your “corrected” views. You went nuts trying to get someone to listen to you. And then you blamed us for what YOU SAID on Australian television. You refuse to be accountable for your own *recorded* words. We all got the same type of emails from you. I offered to give you a forum and spend my free time in doing so, and you were unappreciative and a pest.

I’ll tell you what moderation is, Steve – it’s called being a pussy, a pushover, a watered-down sap. Moderation means selling your soul to avoid conflict. Your interview made you look far worse than your TV interview! And you have no clue how _bad_ some of the stuff you said (in the interview) is. You would have been pummeled by hardcore libertarians who read the interview. People would have hated you. You would have received more hate mails than you could handle. I felt too sorry for you to dare put that interview out for people to read. You are also gutless, and you are an enemy to free people. There is no moderation when it comes to freedom vs. slavery, Steve. There’s freedom … or there’s slavery. Have you ever paid attention to history?

You said you couldn’t push the self-defense issue because you’d have the government police at your door the next day to collect your guns, and that is not a legitimate reason for firearms ownership in Australia.

You don’t even know that you are admitting to being a slave. You’d rather be a slave who can “promote his CD” and make money and get attention. Pathetic.

Stay in Australia and shoot at your varmints and anthills and rusty cars. We have something called “independence” and “freedom” to take care of here in the U.S. We care about our ability to live our lives as free people, and to leave behind the same for our children. So go ahead and forward this email to all your friends, as with the other emails – I will take pride in that.

Enough said, as my readers know that I don’t fuck around on this issue. And when someone like Steve, who was seeking the opportunistic route, goes on national television to bring attention to himself and voluntarily makes statements via his own free will, how dare he blame me for pulling the strings that moved his mouth. I will continue to call ‘em as I see ‘em, complete with links to the source. And I don’t care who I piss off.

It is part of the strategy of the anti-freedom types to make sure that guns are made illigitimate for defense of self and state. Self defense is an argument that the anti-gun types cannot win, so they try to define it out of the picture as early as possible.

1. No one should have guns.
2. No one except the military and the police should have guns.
3. No one should have guns except the police, the military and me should have guns.
4. Everyone should have guns except certain members of our society.
5. Everyone should have guns.

Old Steve is in the third step.

3 posted on 02/25/2010 4:16:33 AM PST by SWAMPSNIPER (THE SECOND AMENDMENT, A MATTER OF FACT, NOT A MATTER OF OPINION)

Wow, the truth comes out.

I am especially pleased about the author's use of profanity: not a lot, just enough to get his point across emphaticaly.

I now tell everybody what an assclown this Steve fellow is, and it blows them away; sometimes they are taken aback and offended that I'd oppose a guy who, on the surface, looks to be on our side. The next day, after surfing for deeper info, they say "Hey, I never knew. Carry on".

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