This is the Clan Badge (worn on the caps/bonnets) of Clan Cameron, and their Clan Motto is just as impressive. It is: Aonaibh ri chéile (Unite).

If you will note the chief feature of the Crest are five arrows bound together with a red ribbon. This is to remind men that it is easier to break a single arrow than to break a bundle of arrows, hence the Motto's call UNITE!

This is a message we gun cranks should take to heart. I realize I'm preaching to the choir, but the need to sermonize is upon me, so bear with me a while.

As Benjamin Franklin put it so succinctly, "We must all hang together or we will all assuredly hang separately." The shooting fraternity needs to paste that to their bathroom mirrors so they will see it every day.

The day is long past when different shooting disciplines can ignore each other. All of our guns are in danger, because none are harmless in the eyes of the Statists and gungrabbers. They are just as eager to ban the $15,000.00 Perrazzi Trap Gun as they are to ban the Jennings .22 LR in the gangbanger's pocket.

Back in 1986, I heard lots of folks say that it didn't bother them when new machineguns were banned. It didn't effect their hunting rifles or their skeet shotguns. It didn't even effect the pistols that rode on their hips or in their pockets. They didn't have a dog in the fight, so they didn't give machinegunners any support.

Back in 1994, I heard lots of folks who simply were not upset about the Assault Weapon Act. They said, "Hell, you can't shoot ducks with them ugly black rifles." So they didn't care that at a single stroke 500 rifles and shotguns became illegal to manufacture or that magazine capacity was limited to 10 rounds, after all, it you can't get it done with six you should have stayed home.

We emerged from eight years of attacks, and denigration stronger than ever, in spite of the many setbacks we suffered. We helped kick the Liberal Democrats out of power, but we replaced them with phony conservative Republicans. George W. recognized how his father had thrown away the 1992 election by alienating the Gun Culture so he set about wooing us. And he managed to seduce us into electing him President. What did we get in return? We got an Attorney General (a fine individual but let's face it, John Ashcroft lost his Senate seat to a dead man) who did publish an opinion that the Second Amendment was a guarantee of an individual right, and a President who promised to sign a renewal of the Assault Weapon Ban if it landed on his desk.

Again, George W. cunningly played gun control card and handily defeated the Liberal jackass who tried to imitate a hunter. And what did we get? We got the resignation of a pro-gun Attorney General and the appointment of a gun grabber to that position.

Let's face it ladies and gentlemen, if the Bush Administration was ever on our side, that time is past.

We can not allow petty bickering between shooting disciplines to fragment our resistance. Saturday Night Specials are as much protected by the Second Amendment as $40,000.00 Holland & Holland Double rifles, or $2,000.00 Custom .475 Linebaugh revolvers. We must stick together or we all loose.

What can we expect in the remainder of the Bush Administration? I think we will see a growing number of restrictions on personal freedom and on firearms.

We are on the very brink of having a National Identity Card introduced, they will call it a drivers license. If your state doesn't meet Federal Guidelines you won't be able to use your driver's license to board an airplane. The Specter of "May I see you paper's please Comrade" will be leaving the old black and white movies about WWII and the Cold War and landing smack on our streets.

We will see a growing number of restrictions, including a de facto registration, of more and more firearms. First they will go after Alsatians .50 BMG rifle, after all it has no sporting use, it is a military weapon. Then we will probably loose most or all Class III weapons. Then you can say farewell to your C&R FFL, after all, just cause they are old doesn't mean those old military rifles aren't dangerous. Every time they attack our freedom they will raise the ghost of 9-11. Pete Martin would puke to know how his murder will be used to rob his sons and his friends of their Freedom.

We must unite to defend our rights or we will loose them piecemeal.

As a symbol of that unity, I think that we'd do well to adopt the Clan Cameron Badge as our badge. If you are interested, you can purchase one from, among many other places, Scottish Tartans Museum in Franklin, NC( http://giftshop.scottishtartans.org/crestitems.html). You can get pin on badges or sew on patches at prices ranging from $15.00 to $22.00. I won't make a cent on the deal but if you order anything from them, tell Matt Newsome, the manager that I sent you.

Now what else can we do? Wearing a Unity Badge won't do any good if we don't act in unity.

I think the time has come for the National Rifle Association to change it's coat. Let us organize as a political party and nominate candidates to state, Federal and local offices. Let the NRA, the CCRKBA, Gun Owners of America and other grassroots groups put away their differences and work together. All of us gun cranks have one or more dogs in this fight, and we all have to fight to defend our Freedom. If we do not fight our rights while it can still be done with words and ballots, we will be forced to fight for them with bullets and blood!!

Let us UNITE! Let us be Free, or die in the effort!

Doc Hudson