Review by Tanya K. Metaksa
SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED: The New Assaults on Your Second Amendment, by David A. Keene and Thomas L. Mason. ©2016. Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018. Hardcover and e-book formats. Price: $22.99 at storefront and online booksellers.
An October 2016 column in Townhall.com authored by former Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia entitled, “This Is the Second Amendment Book to Read Before November 8th,” caught my attention. The book, “Shall Not Be Infringed,” is written by two stalwart defenders of the Second Amendment: David Keene and Thomas Mason. Keene has spent his whole life promoting conservative values and causes, while Mason is a former member of the Oregon House of Representative and law professor who now specializes in international law and politics.
The Townhall.com headline is based on the premise that should Hillary Clinton become president she “has promised to make opposition to the individual right to keep and bear arms a litmus test for potential Supreme Court nominees.”
If you failed to read this book before the 2016 election, it is NOT too late to pick up a copy. The forward is written by former UN Ambassador John Bolton, who writes that he was at the UN when “anti-gun advocates from around the world argued for an international treaty that rejected the idea that anyone has a right to self-defense and would label a nation that permits its citizens the right to keep and bear arms a ‘human rights’ abuser.”
Part I of the book details the history of gun control since the Bill Clinton presidency, most of it detailing the eight years of the Obama presidency including the Fast and Furious scandal. The chapter entitled “Change the Culture” is an excellent synopsis of how progressives use the fear of crime and terrorism to stigmatize firearms and firearms owners.
The crux of the book, however, is really the story about the UN and The Arms Trade Treaty. Mason, who in 1995, was a Democrat member of the Oregon House of Representatives and a professor at Portland State University, fortuitously happened to be at the 1995 UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Cairo. He was there on non-firearms issues when, as mentioned in the book, I, as the then Executive Director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, hired him to represent NRA/ILA at that meeting.
Little did he know that it would lead to 20+ years of work on behalf of US gunowners in the international arena. However, as he writes, it also led to his being fired from his position at Portland State University because of an anti-gun colleague. The story of how the UN works, the bureaucratic nonsense and the role of non-governmental organizations is one every person interested in political science and politics should study.
Even if you read this review after the 2016 election has occurred the book will still be a valuable source material for all gunowners. We have to understand and influence the workings of our political systems whether at the local, national or international level. After all, those who would infringe on our Second Amendment rights are working every second of every day in all those arenas. Vigilance is the cost of freedom. As President John F. Kennedy said, “The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.”
Tanya Metaksa, currently the contributing editor for legislative affairs and politics in TheGunMag.com, has been a state activist for firearms civil rights, chair of Sportsmen for Reagan in 1980, and a staffer in the US Senate, as well as having served in several posts at NRA/ILA.
