
Message number 4145 in "AEN CHAT"
Date: 04-12-94  14:04
From: Ralph Santovenia
To:   All
Subj: Gentleman-at-Arms, 4/94

                   An Assault Weapon By Any Other Name...
                                   by
                            Ralph Santovenia

   Some 13 or 14 years back, I read with interest an editorial piece
on gun control in a gun magazine. The author thought that
anti-gunners were foolish to target handguns, which were defensive
arms, rather than semiautomatic rifles and pump shotguns, which were
commonly used on the assault by special police units. Ten years
later, the anti-gunners woke up.

   All of a sudden, with one or two atypical but highly publicized
crimes (the Purdy killings in California and the Louisville printing
plant murders), "assault weapons" became the bete noire of the
anti-gun movement. In reality, long guns of any type are rarely used
in crimes. Homicides with rifles form a tiny proportion, some 1-3%,
of all such crimes; of that tiny percentage, an even smaller number
are committed with military look-alike weapons. When Sarah Brady and
her pals in government had one of those pony show press conferences,
they had to get an AK clone from a _gun store_. The police hadn't
confiscated any, see.

   Despite this, politicians and cooperative police officials parrot
the lie that these firearms are the "weapons of choice" of drug
dealers, etc. The media, grinding their own anti-gun axe, nod
sagely, with the _New York Times_ printing editorial after editorial
saying that these firearms "have no legitimate purpose in civilian
hands."

   The Founding Fathers disagree. In large part, what kicked off the
American Revolution was an attempt by the government to seize arms
and ammunition. A large percentage of the arms employed by the
American revolutionaries were privately held arms, muskets which had
put meat on the table before the British marched on Lexington and
Concord.

   The Founders were prudent, cautious individuals. The government
which they framed had many safety measures built into it; that's why
we have separate branches of government which balance each other,
preventing any one from becoming supreme and possibly tyrannical.

   That same logic went into the Bill of Rights, which specifically
told the government what it _could_ not do. One of those things
which it was supposed to keep its governmental nose out of was the
right to keep and bear arms. They knew it was unwise to let the
government have a monopoly on the means of lethal force; they wanted
to avoid even having a standing army, which could pose a threat to
liberty.

   For the Colonial era, that meant that Farmer Jones could have his
pistol, blunderbuss, or Pennsylvania rifle without having kowtow to
some government official or body. Today, that means that you or I
should be able to have a Browning Hi Power pistol, Remington 1100,
or AR-15 Sporter without having to kiss the collective ass of city,
county, state, and federal governments.

   But, the misinformed or misled, protest, the Second Amendment was
intended to protect the right of the States to form militias
independent of the Federal government.

   Bushwa. There's not a shred of evidence that this is what the
Second Amendment meant. On the contrary, the historical evidence --
the original drafts of the Second Amendment submitted by State
delegates, the subsequent adoption of similar clauses in State
constitutions, the historical writings and debates of the Framers --
is overwhelming that the intent of the Second Amendment was to
protect an individual right to keep and bear arms, both for one's
personal defense and as a means of combatting tyranny, whether
foreign or home-grown. Professor Lawrence Tribe (gun-grabbing law
professor from Harvard), gullible reporters, and other such stalwart
anti-gunners notwithstanding, no compelling evidence has ever been
presented to contradict this.

   Reason being no obstacle to the irrational, the anti-gunners
maintain that modern firearms are too destructive for them to be
protected by the Second Amendment. In this roundabout fashion, they
argue that the Second Amendment is obsolete. If that were true, if
such specious reasoning can nullify the Second, why not the First?
(There was no television or cinema in 1787; obviously, the free
speech clause doesn't apply to them. No electronic news media,
either, so freedom of the press is protected only in the local
papers, right?)

   It is a peculiar thing to see folks who say that the rights of
criminals must be observed, even if a technicality frees a murderer,
also say that the Second Amendment protects a right which is too
"costly." Too many lives, they say, are lost to firearms every year.
They see it on the Gun Clock, that massive tribute to media
misrepresentation, with lives ticking away all day and night long.
But how many of those ticks represent suicides, which probably would
have occurred anyway? Or criminals killed by police or their own
victims? Gimmicks like the Gun Clock paint a picture that is
entirely negative, with guns causing mayhem, while providing nothing
good.

   They're wrong. Despite all the statistics batted about, firearms
provide political and social benefits. If firearms liberties have
their price (and all liberties do), they have their advantages, too.

   Just ask the two or three million people a year in the U.S. who
use them in self-defense. Ask the Swiss, who have kept their borders
inviolate for ages with a citizen militia. As for nations, such as
Japan, which as a matter of course prohibit firearms ownership,
reflect on who exactly were the aggressors in the last World War and
who the gun-toting protectors of liberty were.

   How many people are prepared to say that they trust the
government completely enough to disarm every private citizen? That
is the logic of the position of Sarah Brady and other gun-grabbers,
no matter how much they argue otherwise. Their calls for bans, needs
tests, blanket licensing, and other unnecessary restrictions on
liberty lead inexorably to a "privilege of being armed," given or
denied at the whim of a government official. Is that what the
Framers had in mind? What right would go next onto the government
chopping block? What means would the populace have to resist such
violations of their liberties?

   And what about the Gun Clock? The "philanthropist" who funded it
said he did it in the memory of his brother, who was killed by
"senseless gun violence." His brother, folks, was killed by a
policeman in the line of duty...

--End of Text--

Ralph Santovenia 4/12/94


--- Maximus/2 2.00 * Origin: Rifle Range 914-452-4753 Firearms
 Liberty Politics (1:272/68)
