Veteran Arizona gun rights advocate Alan Korwin, author of several gun law books and a prolific writer, is scrambling to distance himself from what appears to be a rather cleverly concocted fraud that takes something he wrote almost four years ago and makes it look like some brand new sinister scheme he has uncovered.
In an unusual step, he has issued an alert that appears on the Ammo Land website, denouncing the first paragraphs of this new missive that has spread across the Internet like a bad case of the flu, under his byline. It purports to identify a new list of guns that the Obama administration has its heart set on banning.
Korwin can be flamboyant, self-promoting and hilarious all at the same time, but he’s not crazy nor does he appear in public with a tinfoil hat. The list of proposed banned guns, he says today, was accurate four years ago when he found it in the language of HR 1022, a Democrat bill introduced in the 110th Congress in January 2009.
Examiner tried to reach Korwin by telephone but he so far has not returned the call.
Korwin wrote about that, and the list is still on his website. He is abundantly candid about that. But where fantasy joins with reality is in the first paragraphs of this new piece. This is what it says:
“Here it is, folks, and it is bad news. The framework for legislation is always laid, and the Democrats have the votes to pass anything they want to impose upon us. They really do not believe you need anything more than a brick to defend your home and family. Look at the list and see how many you own. Remember, it is registration, then confiscation. It has happened in the UK, in Australia, in Europe, in China, and what they have found is that for some reason the criminals do not turn in their weapons, but will know that you did.
“Remember, the first step in establishing a dictatorship is to disarm the citizens.”
And this is how Korwin reacted: “I did not write that inflammatory paragraph and its next sentence, even though someone has attributed that to me.”
Is there anything about that statement that is not understood?
Korwin adds, “It is horrifying from a gun-rights perspective. Whoever used my name without my permission or knowledge was at least clever.”
Hardly is this anything new. Falsely-credited quotes are something of an Internet regularity, as are revisionist alerts about the Australian gun ban. It happens to celebrities, it happens to politicians. It even happens to dead people. Now it has happened to Korwin, and he is not a happy camper.
It has never been clear why people pull this sort of stunt. Korwin can write his own material, he does not need anyone’s help. This sort of thing has happened to yours truly over a 40-plus year writing career, and people have even attempted to put words in my mouth during public debate. Some folks even had the temerity to rewrite a tongue-in-cheek gun owner’s rendition of the “Night Before Christmas” I authored some 20 years ago, and put their names on it as their own work.
This column has received a couple of forwarded copies of the offending screed, and one inquiry from a pal living in California. He got it from a source he considers very reliable, so he forwarded it to me inquiring about its possible veracity.
Korwin should not get bum-rapped for this alarmist regurgitation of something he uncovered and wrote about in early 2009. Contrary to what Korwin says about it being clever, it is not that at all. It’s rather tacky.
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