Previous Post
Next Post

David Codrea writes [via ammoland.com]

John Glenn has passed away at the age of 95. The Marine pilot, astronaut and senator died Thursday afternoon at Wexler Medical Center in Columbus, OH, surrounded by family. The man was unquestionably an American hero, having flown a total of 149 combat missions in World War II and the Korean War. He literally put his life on the line for this country uncounted times, deserving our gratitude for a debt we can never pay back. For many of us growing up at the time of his perilous first Mercury orbital mission in Friendship 7, he was a larger-than-life icon.

And for those of us who went on to become advocates for the right to keep and bear arms, he was an enigma we’ll forever have trouble reconciling. Our admiration for his deeds will be dogged by recognition of the lead Glenn took in imposing infringements that dictate the way guns are owned and transferred today.

“Pro–gun control advocates mobilized and constructed an effective pro–gun control pressure group called the Emergency Committee for Gun Control,” Encycopedia.com documents. “The bipartisan organization was headed by Colonel John H. Glenn, Jr., a former astronaut and friend of Senator Robert Kennedy.”

The most significant federal legislation since the 1934 National Firearms Act, GCA ’68 “primarily focuses on regulating interstate commerce in firearms by generally prohibiting interstate firearms transfers except among licensed manufacturers, dealers and importers.” It also added marking requirements, denied guns to specific classes of “prohibited persons” and placed import restrictions on “non-sporting” weapons.

As Aaron Zelman and Richard J. Stevens of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership documented in “’Gun Control’- Gateway to Tyranny,” GCA ’68 author Sen. Thomas Dodd was not only in possession of a copy of German “gun control” laws from 1938, but that a side-by-side comparison with U.S. law reveals fundamental similarities, particularly when it comes to the origin of “sporting purpose” restrictions.

That’s an irreconcilable difference those of us who admired John Glenn, but believed him to have been gravely mistaken in his views on the right to keep and bear arms, will carry into eternity. That’s sad, because for many of us, “God speed John Glenn” is more than words from history, it’s a sentiment we feel as we come to grips with and mourn his passing.

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.

In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

Previous Post
Next Post

63 COMMENTS

  1. You can respect a man for his achievements that cant be duplicated.
    But you don’t have to like the man for the way he felt about subjects you don’t agree on.

    • Yes, I will always respect John Glenn for the service he rendered to this country. I still remember the pride I felt watching his Mercury launch as an elementary school student. However, that doesn’t mean that all of his life achievements are worthy of our respect, especially his political life where he chose to champion much of the Democrat agenda, including gun control.

      • To paraphrase the immortal words of Les Grossman, “John, you’re a great American. This nation owes you a huge debt… NOW SHUT THE F—- UP AND LET ME KEEP MY GUNS!”

    • I would imagine, as in many careers, promotion at NASA is as much based on politicking as on ability or past accomplishments. The higher up you want to go, the more in lock-step with the brass you better be.
      For me, admiration of someone is as much based on an individuals politics as much as ability or past accomplishments -which in my book, make the value of John Glenn’s accomplishments basically a wash.

  2. In 1941, he could have stayed in college, but he signed up for the Marines anyway.
    In 1950, he could have stayed at his job as a flight instructor, stateside, but he volunteered for combat duty in Korea anyway.
    When the space program was looking for test pilots to volunteer for what was sure to be a high-risk operation, he raised his hand and became one of the original seven U.S. astronauts.

    John Glenn’s courage, sacrifice and achievements far outweigh his shortcomings in ideology.

    • Mmm, no. Even a tyrant can have courage, but it doesn’t change the fact he was a tyrant, and he violated his oath as a member of the military to defend the constitution from enemies, foreign and domestic.

      He in fact was the enemy to our Constitution that he was supposed to defend it against.

    • Glenn was an adamant opponent to the Second Amendment and was a very powerful member of the Democratic Party’s gun control faction. He and his fellow travelers would have gladly stripped you of your guns and made you a felon over night if he could. He would have destroyed your life and your family if he felt it necessary to accomplish the “greater good.” He was not your friend, he was an enemy of freedom.

      Rationalizing and or ignoring 25 years of bad politics, and some really bad corruption because you had his poster on your wall as a kid is pretty much the definition of flawed thinking. In fact, that is how corruption and bad governance flourishes.

      https://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/1942378_Good-riddance-to-John-Glenn-.html&page=1

      if a member, comment

  3. Yes Glenn was a genuine hero. Not mentioned along with his anti 2A antics was his NOT being indicted as a Keating 5 miscreant. In truth Glenn was a typical liberal democrat when it wasn’t a pejorative term. Now he’d be a RINO. I’ll never forget being a kid and listening in school to his orbiting the earth in a tincan…yeah there’s something about astronauts.

  4. There are no heroes. People have their reasons for doing what they do. For all anyone knows Glenn hated himself and was suicidal. Laika is worth reverence, remembrance and even vengeance against those cold Commie bastards. Glenn’s just some guy who sat in a coffee can on top of a stack of dynamite kind of like Johnny Knoxville.

    Would I do it? Nope. I also wouldn’t climb into a porta-potty to be rolled down a hill.

  5. Well, and then there’s his obstruction of the Senate investigation of the Clintons. If I remember correctly, it seemed pretty obvious at the time his Space Shuttle trip was payback for carrying water for the Clintons.

    Which reminds us how the Clintons soil everything they touch.

  6. Not to diminish Glenn’s achievements outside of his crappy view on gun rights, but my personal hero as far as astronauts go will always be Buzz Aldrin. Punching a conspiracy theorist in the face is a really good way to get me to respect somebody, regardless of whatever else they do with their life.

  7. I am a retired military pilot from Ohio. John McCain and John Glenn are examples of men who swore to defend the Constitution but betrayed it through their political behavior. Not only did Glenn, a staunch democrat, favor gun control but also strongly supported the killing of the unborn. So much for the “….right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness….” I will not mourn the passing of John Glenn nor the passing of John McCain no matter how wonderful the MSM tells me they were.

    • Is it ok to wear a rubber or take birth control pills? ’cause not that long ago many said the bible (or koran – pick your version of the “truth”) said Big Brother Government should outlaw that too. This site is about guns and the 2A, not your beliefs on when life is viable or not. I think once a person is on medical life support, government should never allow somebody to disconnect it no matter what, as it is allah’s will to keep you hooked up.

  8. “John Glenn’s courage, sacrifice and achievements far outweigh far outweigh his shortcomings in ideology.”

    Not to me they don’t. 75 years ago millions of German and Russian military men in their devotion to their respective “ideologies” routinely displayed an almost unfathomable degree of courage and sacrifice ( read “Fighting in Hell” by Peter G. Tsouras ) but I doubt too many Americans living in that era would have given them a thumbs up and a pat on the back for courageously trying to advance political tyranny.

  9. He also sold his vote for not impeaching bill clinton so that he could go back into space…….he tarnished his legacy with that vote…..

  10. Great astronaut.

    But a lousy politician. He sold out on gun control and the Savings and Loan bailout. He was part of the Keating Five.

    I will remember John Glenn as a fighter pilot and astronaut but not as a Senator.

    • Me, too. The original 7 Astronauts were hell raisers and tended to give NASA fits. All except Glenn who was was a real prig. The word around NASA was that they didn’t much like him.

  11. Military officers are, by nature and training, elitists. Some resist the urge to constantly command others. Some cannot.

    Navy men are the worst. Kennedy, Nixon, Johnson, Carter, Bush 41 . . . all Navy, all elitists. Glenn was a Marine and should have known better, but he didn’t.

    George Washington was called “First in War, First in Peace.” John Glenn is more like “First in War, Last in Peace.”

  12. The people whom founded this great country have sacrificed much much much much much MUUUUCH more than Glenn. Instead of making good on his OATH to protect this costly legacy, he bent it over the table and molested it.

    Good riddance.

  13. As the famous oath-breaker said in 1996, we can’t have a law requiring bill sponsors to state which section of the Constitution authorizes the legislation they’re introducing, because:

    “Americans just want us to… not be concerned
    if they can be constitutionally justified…
    Why, if we had to do that we could not pass
    most of the laws we enact around here.”
    http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/John.Glenn.Quote.7188

    Hey, John, you just pointed out the reason why that bill was needed; tyrants like you willfully operating way beyond the powers that were granted to you by the Constitution while claiming you have every right to do it.

  14. Christopher Columbus did some pretty awesome things, too, but a lot of people curse his name today.

    What’s with the sneakers and athletic socks in the photograph? Very incongruous.

  15. I don’t really see the problem with separating his accomplishments from his personal views.

    Back in the day some might have referred to this as a “Gentlemen’s disagreement”.

      • While I know that this sort of things rubs you the wrong way Serge I’m not exactly sure how your personal honor would be offended by this guy’s opinions (or legislation he helped to advance) and therefore I’m equally unsure what grounds you would have to demand “satisfaction”. Generally a duel would require that you or your kin be personally and crudely insulted.

        Given the nature of dueling etiquette I suspect that Mr. Glenn would easily get away with dismissing your demand for satisfaction on the grounds that it was either frivolous or that you were not of high enough stature to challenge someone of his social standing.

        I have to say though, if you did actually slap him with a glove that would have been some shit for the history books. He might not have been able to walk away from that either since at that point you would have insulted him to the point it would pretty much have to be cowardice to decline.

        Of course, you could always have suggested “bloodless” dueling with wax bullets such as was practiced in the Olympics in the early 20th Century. That would have been flat-the-fuck-out awesome.

        • The fact that he wore the same uniform I did. By turning his back on his oath to protect the CotUS, he impugned the honor of the entire Corps.

    • If, in his personal life he said he would like to strip Americans of their rights, then that is his personal view. When he casts a vote on the Senate floor in favor of stripping Americans of their rights it is no longer his personal view. It is then a violation of his oath and treason.

  16. All the accomplishments in the world are negated by a single act of treason. If you support a violation of the CotUS that you swore to protect and uphold, you are nothing other than scum. Whatever else you accomplished will not change that. In all the world, there is nothing as filthy and wretched as a traitor.

  17. Substitute trannys in the women’s bathroom for Second Amendment and you guys would sound just like some candy ass SJW.

    • It’s pretty crazy how quickly lots of the commenters here fall right into the stereotype of gunnies who can only see the world in black or white.

      • Yeah… Sorry. Either you support the CotUS or you don’t. That’s pretty black and white. If you do, well, then the shades of gray come in. If you don’t the only thing you deserve is a bullet to the back of the head.

        • You can support tbe Constitution without descending to the depths of SJWs. I go further, if you sound and act like a SJW you don’t really support the Constitution.

      • The world is largely black and white.

        You are with the Constitution, or against. His actions were a violation of ever oath he ever took.

        • There is more to the Constitution than the Seconomy Amendment. If you ever used the term RINO you don’t support Article I or Article II of the Constitution. That’s a little more fundamental than the Second Amendment.

    • McCain attended tbe meeting and did nothing. He was included in the Keating 5 so Democrats could blame Republicans.

  18. John Glenn was a leftist Democrat who hated Reagan and did everything he could to undermine him when he was Senator Glenn instead of Astronaut Glenn.

    Its funny watching so called Conservatives fawn all over the guy when he was their nemesis for most his life. Mark Levin spent an entire radio show eulogizing this gun grabbing leftist goofball. Its really too much.

    More proof that the Van Allen belts cosmic rays turn astronauts brains into mush.

  19. I’m guessing that at this point John Glenn really doesn’t care what anybody thinks of him.

    But it is important to note that whether you like him or not, he never attacked the integrity of the First Amendment, like some politicians would love to do today. Without the First Amendment, the Second Amendment falls quickly.

  20. I would say Glenn had a similar experience Charles Lindbergh had: Near instant fame and universal adulation that probably creeped him out to know end.

    Literally from the moment Lindbergh’s plane came to a stop outside Paris he was dragged from it and carried around for hours by psycho Parisians, plus the grizzly abduction and murder of his child a few years later fostered quite odd political beliefs in him like his admiration for Hitler’s National Socialism.

    Glenn, by then well immersed in the bubble of an elite by the time he saw the 2nd Kennedy brother shot came to a conclusion far different from those who do not share his rarefied air as to how they should or shouldn’t effect the rights of the people.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here