Progressive Hate Mail: How to Respond
The pro-2A civil rights perspective is supported by data and reason that progressive gun-grabbers simply lack. Let’s start making arguments that reflect this fact.
Following a Feb. 25, 2019 appearance by 2A Civil Rights Advocate Steve Felano on WGRZ TV in Buffalo, N.Y., we at 2AWNY.COM received our first piece of progressive hate mail. It only took two months to accomplish this and, in our opinion, if we’re getting noticed by progressives and sending them off the deep end, we’re doing something right. They need to know the 2A culture is very much alive in WNY and across the state, it is growing, it will not go away, and IT WILL WIN.
Anyway, the comments that set this particular progressive off appeared on WGRZ’s 11 PM newscast. In the interview, pre-recorded several hours earlier by Anchor Scott Levin, Felano made several brief and factual points regarding the clear fallacy that the Red Flag imperial edict signed by Imperial Criminal Andrew Cuomo is not truly deigned to have an appreciable impact on ‘gun violence,’ nor is it capable of having such an impact. He also touched upon the shaky intermediate scrutiny standard that courts have used to uphold unconstitutional gun control laws, and noted said standard will likely be reversed upon U.S. Supreme Court review in NYSRPA v. NYC.
The aforementioned news report resulted in the following piece of hate mail submitted to 2AWNY.COM by a rabid progressive named Bob Trafton. Provided below is Trafton’s message, and Felano’s reply. This is being offered to demonstrate that arguments deeper than ‘that law is unconstitutional’ need to be made to progressives, because citing the Constitution as your source is like telling them the Easter Bunny said so – they simply don’t believe in the authority of your source. The point is, intellectual and logically air-tight arguments can and should be made in defense of our 2A civil rights. Let’s start making these arguments, and shoving them in the face of NY progressives at every turn:
Feb. 25 message from Bob Trafton at btt@aol.com:
“Saw your man on channel 2 tonight. Y’all are fucking idiots. Let the state do there thing to prevent other idiots (like yourselves) from buying, owning, and using killing machines. I love seeing you 2A fanatics continue to have accidents or self inflicted wounds with your firearms. Kill yourselves before you do any more damage to this amazing country. Blue wave is coming motherfuckers. Leave this country before we run you out on rails.”
Feb. 26 reply from Steve Felano at sfelano@2AWNY.COM:
“Hi Bob. Thanks for your thoughts. I can see that I ‘triggered’ you (pun intended).
You prove my point that, for progressives like yourself, gun control is not about its advertised purpose of generating a meaningful impact on ‘gun violence’ (whatever that means). For progressives, the central point of gun control is personal emotional therapy, because progressives (like you) are mentally ill-equipped to cope with a complex world not fully under their control, a feature of which is various instances of violence that cannot be forestalled short of unconstitutional police-state style tactics and overreach (i.e. red flag laws). Instead of accepting the reality of this situation, progressives turn to the liberty reduction of others – i.e. gun control – in order to craft an emotional security blankey so they can feel safe at night and ‘sleep tight.’ Progressives want to be able to tell themselves they ‘did something’ about the latest mass killing, even if the ‘something’ they did takes no meaningful steps toward achieving their stated goal, which is always the case.
The first meaningful step toward achieving progressives’ stated goal would involve ensuring that the existing federal background check system operates as advertised. We saw in the case of the 2017 First Baptist Church mass killing in Sutherland Springs, Texas that this did NOT occur – Air Force officials failed to update the system with the assailant’s numerous domestic assault charges, and so the assailant was able to procure a firearm. Because progressives staff the departments responsible for maintaining the background check system with unionized employees who are difficult to discipline and terminate, and who are shielded from the profit motive, there will continue to be quality control lapses in the background check system that result in deaths like the ones we saw in Texas.
HELP FIGHT EMPEROR CUOMO IN THE SUPREME COURT
The second meaningful step toward achieving progressives’ stated goal would involve admitting that progressivism – now the dominant ideology for both mainstream democrats and republicans – has played a massive roll in degrading society to the point where individuals descend into a pit of bottomless nihilism where they can no longer find joy or meaning in anything they do, and therefore commit atrocities like mass killings. When this country wakes up from the nightmare that is progressivism and dispenses with this useless ideology, mass killings will cease to become an unfortunate feature of modern life.
The above would certainly be difficult to tackle and achieve – and this is why progressives avoid discussing these issues like the plague, because the progressive is overall undisciplined and lazy, and prefers comfort and convenience to hard work and meaningful struggle – but, as you can see, my recommendations would make much greater strides towards limiting ‘gun violence’ than unconstitutional imperial edicts like red flag laws. This is because my recommendations are based on empirical data and logic, and yours (and those advanced by progressives as a whole) are based on emotion and intellectual sloth.
So, to tie this all together, you prove the point I made and originally stated at the open of my reply. Progressives like you support gun control because you are emotionally unstable and intellectually lazy. This is why your reply reads like an unhinged rant from a 10th grader upset with his ex-girlfriend. I’d like to let you know that I will NOT stand down on my stated goal of destroying NY gun control. I’m in my early thirties, and have at least another 30 more years to continue this fight, but I doubt it’ll even take that long. Attorney Jim Ostrowski will be in NYS Supreme Court on Thursday (Feb. 28, 2019) to deliver his oral argument in the case that will eventually overturn the SAFE Act in the U.S. Supreme Court on constitutional grounds. Go ahead and attend at the courthouse in Rochester, if you’d like to be “triggered” again.
Stay safe out there, and don’t forget your security blankey.”

Steve Felano
2AWNY Civil Rights Advocate
HELP FIGHT EMPEROR CUOMO IN THE SUPREME COURT
2AWNY is a force multiplier for the numerous Second Amendment civil rights advocacy enterprises forming the backbone of Western New York’s vibrant gun culture. We act as a 2A news and information distribution, policy analysis, and organizational driver for the many interest groups seeking to defend and expand Second Amendment civil rights throughout the region. 2AWNY is dedicated to assisting in the organization, promotion, and funding of legal challenges to the unconstitutional New York State gun control regime. We seek to make Western New York the epicenter of New York State’s Second Amendment civil rights renaissance. Learn more at WWW.2AWNY.COM.