The WAR IN THE WEST, or, more properly, the WAR FOR THE WEST continues on!

Okay, here's the short version:

Last night's 3rd and final "open public forum" on the U.S. Forest Service's attempt to end recrational shooting in the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests, the Greenies are backpeddling faster than a mime on meth. To wit:

• All of a sudden, consistency — which was ostensibly the driving factor for this "Urban Front Country Environmental Assessment" — is no longer even on the table.

• The focus has shifted — thanks to the HARD WORK of gunowners, shooters and Second Amendment advocates! — to the Greenies' unwillingness to ENFORCE THE EXISTING LAW, whether about illegal dumping and littering, unsafe gun-handling, etc. Apparently the Greenies believe that instead of enforcing the existing laws, their job is to bleat endlessly about how much they could do if they had more laws and more resources.

• That list of "issues" the Greenies so proudly presently, then failed to substantiate with ANY DOCUMENTATION WHATSOEVER has disappeared into, "Oh, like, those were only suggestions...oh, don't look at those at all...don't even look at this list!" Really, a Greenie told me that.

And so on and so on. Even the very few non-gun people who turned out for the meeting, less than 9 out of 40, were less than enamored by the USFS "issues." That should tell you how "hot" these issues really are...if you can't bring out more than 9 people in BOULDER, you're shouting down an empty well, as my grandfather would have said! Maybe they should have announced a witches' sabbat...oh, sorry, that was the eve of May 1!

Does this mean we've won?

NOT BY A LONG SHOT! The only stake that will keep this vampire in the ground has to come from Washington, and that's where our primary efforts are. The Greenies are intentionally stretching this process out — the antigun program has been running for a year now, and they say the "complete process" is going to take another year to a year and a half.

The idea is to stretch it out as long as possible in the hopes we lose interest...it's an old spin technique, just like the unwillingness to let the larger meeting speak; dividing into "brainstorming" groups to break up the larger group dynamic; not letting us speak directly with the Greenies themselves; bringing in "facilitators" from outside the local district, many of whom were shooters; having a visible armed presence to send the message that gun owners are dangerously unstable (which backfired pretty badly for the hapless Greenies, BTW, and was largely abandoned by the 3rd meeting); providing a list of "issues" in the hopes of swaying the small groups, etc. The Greenies hope that by the time they present their INGENIOUS SOLUTIONS TO THE NON-EXISTANT PROBLEMS, we'll have forgotten that the real issues on the table are lack of ANY law enforcement, abysmal ignorance about firearms and recreational shooting, and the Greenie's willingness to waste their precious resources on a witch-hunt against shooters.

One night a week at home and I get to watch a bunch of Greenies get madder and madder watching their antigun plans go up in smoke! "Good faith" effort! Makes you wonder just how stupid they actually think we are...the only"good faith" part of the whole exercise was that they didn't make use of their armed presence to round us all up, put us in some sort of USFS concentration camp and force us to make all-organic hemp billfolds and draws topo maps for birdwatchers all day long.

I think I'm going to take my girlfriend up on the idea of suing the Greenies in federal court over the closing of the range close to my house.

The WAR FOR THE WEST continues...updates as they happen...