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you don’t belong to the NRA and you do not vote, you are
the problem.
The anti gun groups
are not the problem. The
gun owners are the problem.
There are approximately eighty five million legal gun
owners in America, and only four million belong to the
National Rifle Association.
Such apathy is the problem and is a total
disgrace. If we
had eighty five million members in the NRA the anti gun
politicians would be terrified.
In spite of what anti gun groups would like us to
believe, America does not have a gun problem.
The anti gun groups are always quick to point out
that there are about two hundred and fifty million guns in
America, but they never mention there are about eighty five
million legal gun owners.
Two hundred and fifty million guns divided by eighty
five million legal gun owners equals 2.9 guns per legal gun
owner. Doesn’t
look like much of a problem to me.
GUN
DEBATE NOT A NEW THING
Regardless
of which side of the issue anyone is on with regard to gun
control, I have to wonder how many people realize just how
old an issue it really is.
Most folks would point to the 60s and say the debate
began there with the assassinations of the Kennedys and Rev.
King. But here
in Massachusetts, especially in Massachusetts, we should
know it begins much further back than that.
All the way back before our founding as a nation.
After
the passage of the Intolerable Acts, meant to punish
Massachusetts citizens, the people grew increasingly angry.
Tax collectors were beaten by angry mobs, people were
killed in the streets of Boston, and Gov. Gage was worried
that open revolt was imminent.
His solution? Gun
control. With
English ships of war in the harbor, cannon pointed at the
city, and armed regulars quartered in private homes, guns
were collected from city inhabitants.
Next was to confiscate the arms from outside of
Boston. His
first try was a success, having confiscated the stores at
the Provincial powder house in Cambridge in the dead of
night. But the
attempt at Portsmouth was a failure as was the attempt at
Salem. The
Salem powder alarm came close to open warfare, but cooler
heads prevailed and everyone went home, the regulars with
their tails between their legs.
With the abysmal failures of his last two attempts at
gun control, Gage cooled off for a while to give the
Provincials a false sense of security, and then planned his
next and last attempt at gun control which was to be in
Concord.
From
the time the regulars were paddled ashore in Charlestown to
their arrival in Concord, thousands of patriots had been
alarmed, from Cambridge to Andover, from Hull to Amesbury,
and they were on the march.
Eighty brave patriots in Lexington faced hundreds of
England’s crack regulars on Lexington Common.
It was a massacre. Hundreds of furious patriots hit back at the Concord bridge
and chased the regulars back to Lexington, all the while as
more and more patriots came streaming in from all over
Massachusetts to join in the fight for freedom.
They were men and boys whose wives or mothers packed
their haversacks for them, rolled their paper cartridges,
and pushed them out the door to join the fight.
Those brave women, who wouldn’t let their men folk
see their tears until they were out of sight, took up their
own guns to protect their homes and little ones, just in
case.
Yes,
here in Massachusetts the war for freedom began, and it
started over our right to “keep and bear arms.” Heroes, one and all, risking all that they had in a fight
which they couldn’t believe was winnable at the time. All because they believed that every man’s most sacred
value was his own life, to be free to defend it and the
lives of those he cherished, to live it as he chose, and to
be responsible for the outcome.
They believed that any government which takes away or
hinders a man’s honorable duty to defend that which he
holds most sacred, is a government which enslaves it
subjects.
It
was the actions of Gov. Gage that resulted in the Second
Amendment as an individual right.
A right to be protected from future leaders of the
same mind as Gage. To
say that it only applies to any army (militia) is to say
that it means we have a right to join an army.
What nation would ever need to enumerate a right of
the people to join the military?
What government would deny anyone that right? Think about it, a nation without an army because no one has
the right to join? What
rational man could imagine such a thing might come to pass,
as having no means to acquire an army for lack of a
“right” to join? That’s
not what the Second Amendment is about.
It is an individual’s right, plain and simple.
The
Truth About Gun Control
What
bugs me most about the gun-control crowd, which now masquerades as
the gun-safety crowd, is the blatant rampant dishonesty.
What
they really want to do is ban the private ownership of firearms.
The first step in doing that would be to repeal the Second
Amendment. If
that’s what they want, that’s the path they should follow.
Instead,
like the lying dogs they are, they try different tactics to
accomplish the same purpose.
They want to hold gun manufacturers liable for the criminal
misuse of firearms, for example. Their idea is to make it unprofitable to manufacturer
firearms.
That
proposition is stupid on its face.
If the maker of a firearm is to be liable for the criminal
misuse of the product then you would have to hold Ford, General
Motors, Chrysler and all of the other automobile manufacturers
liable for the criminal misuse of automobiles.
All gun manufacturers are federally licensed wholesalers,
who in turn distribute them to federally licensed dealers, all of
whom must do background checks on their customers before selling
them a firearm.
The
truth is that most criminals deal in stolen firearms or in
firearms bought out of the backs of automobiles on the street.
Gun-control laws do not affect the behavior of criminals
who, by definition, don’t obey the laws.
Recently,
Sen. Edward Kennedy offered an amendment to a liability insurance
bill that would ban “armor-piercing bullets.” Now, that might
sound reasonable, except that there are no armor-piercing bullets
on the market. Sen.
Kennedy defined “armor piercing “ as any bullet that would
penetrate the vest worn by most cops.
That would include practically all rifle ammunition used
for hunting.
What
the senator didn’t say is that the vest worn by the cops are not
designed to withstand a rifle bullet.
They are designed to protect the officer from pistol
bullets, since the overwhelming majority of firearms used by
criminals are pistols. It’s
a matter of velocity, not the type of cartridge.
The common deer rifle is a .30/30 caliber, about the
weakest firearm useable for hunting, yet it has much greater
velocity that a .357 Magnum
Pistol
round. Kennedy’s
amendment would have rendered useless most of the rifles in
America.
By
the way, the National Union of Police Officers opposed Kennedy’s
amendment. He
apparently pushed the amendment as part of an effort to kill the
main bill, which is what happened.
The
gun-control crowd also wanted to extend the ban on assault rifles,
which is a farce of a law if ever there was one.
All this law does is ban certain cosmetic features on
weapons, such as a bayonet lug. The fact is that a true assault weapon is one that has a
switch that allows the weapon to be fired semiautomatic- one shot
with one pull of the trigger-or fully automatic.
Every one of those weapons was already regulated by a law
passed in the 1930s. Anyone
wishing to buy an automatic weapon has to get a special license
from the U.S. Treasury Department, Semiautomatics, which fire the
same way revolvers fire (one shot per one pull of the trigger),
are legal and operate the same without the cosmetic features our
brilliant lawmakers banned.
More
to the point study after study has shown that it is a rare, rare
event when criminals resort to rifles. Obviously, criminals
don’t want to be seen walking down the street with a rifle over
their shoulder.
Of
course, the reason the gun-banners can’t be honest is that if
they looked at the subject honestly and objectively, they would
have to conclude that the private ownership of firearms in America
is a blessing. Cars
and doctors kill a lot more people than firearms, but nobody wants
to ban them.
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Saturday, Nov. 20, 2004 9:36
p.m. EST
Condi: Why I
Support the Second Amendment
Secretary of
State nominee Dr. Condoleezza Rice is a big supporter of the
Second Amendment, a commitment cultivated during her days growing
up in Bull Conner's Birmingham, Ala., when the shotgun wielded by
her father was often the only thing that stood between her family
and the Ku Klux Klan.
In 1963, racial violence was "turning her hometown into 'Bombingham'
as Alabama’s governor George Wallace fought a federal court order
to integrate the city’s schools," writes Rice biographer Antonia
Felix. In excerpts of her book "The Condoleezza Rice Story,"
reprinted in the London Sunday Times, Felix recounts:
"With the
bombings came marauding groups of armed white vigilantes called
'nightriders,' who drove through black neighborhoods shooting and
starting fires. [Condi's father] John Rice and his neighbors
guarded the streets at night with shotguns.
"The memory of
her father out on patrol lies behind Rice’s opposition to gun
control today. Had those guns been registered, she argues, Bull
Connor would have had a legal right to take them away, thereby
removing one of the black community’s only means of defense."
"I have a sort
of pure Second Amendment view of the right to bear arms," said the
future secretary of state.
GUN HISTORY
Whether you agree or not, it's an
interesting lesson in history. Something to think about...
In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to
1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves,
were rounded up and exterminated
In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5
million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up
and exterminated Germany established gun control in 1938 and from
1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were
unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.
China established gun control i n 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20
million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were
rounded up and exterminated. Guatemala established gun control in
1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend
themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. Uganda established
gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable
to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. Cambodia
established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million
'educated' people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up
and exterminated. Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated
in the 20th Century because of gun control: 56 million. It has no
w been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced by new
law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by
their own government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more
than $500 million dollars.
The first year results are now in:
Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2 percent
Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6 percent.
Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44
percent)!
In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up
300 percent. Note, that while the law-abiding citizens turned them
in, the criminals did not, and criminals still possess their
guns!) While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady
decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed
drastically upward in the past 12 months, since criminals now are
guaranteed that their prey is unarmed. There has also b een a
dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the ELDERLY.
Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety
has decreased, after such monumental effort, and expense was
expended in successfully ridding Australian society of guns. The
Australian experience and the other historical facts above prove
it. You won't see this data on the American evening news or hear
our president, governors or other politicians disseminating this
information.
Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and,
yes, gun-control laws affect only the law-abiding citizens. Take
note my fellow Americans.....before it's too late!
The next time someone talks in favor of gun control, please remind
them of this history lesson. With guns, we are 'citizens'. Without
them, we are 'subjects'.
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