After promoting the conspiracy theory that the United Nations is attempting to ban private firearm ownership in the United States in a February 2011 column for America’s 1^st Freedom, Schmeits wrote, “Thomas Paine once said, ‘It is the responsibility of the patriot to protect his country from its government.’ NRA will heed his warning even if no one else will … If foreign powers insist upon pushing their idea of ‘global norms’ across our borders, NRA will be the first to alert and mobilize the American people to stop them.” The Paine quote used by Schmeits is bogus—it has no legitimate source.

Schmeits wrote a “President’s Column” for the November 2010 issue of America’s 1^st Freedom, in which he proclaimed: “The political class in Washington today wants to make you dependent upon them. They want to be the sole source, or controlling authority, over every aspect of your life. They want you to be beholden to them—so that you’ll vote them back into office for fear of losing their supposed ‘benevolence.’ And everything a firearm represents—independence, self-sufficiency, personal security, even the notion of a free and armed society—goes against everything they want to impose on this country.”