Posted on 06/27/2003 5:03:35 PM PDT by thorshammer
With the 04 elections right around the corner, I'm sure many of us are receiving donation letters from the Republican National Committee, asking us for our hard-earned money in order to stave off the Democrat onslaught.
This is all fine & good, except for one thing... with Pres. Bush's stance on the AW ban, and without any real assurances from Republican lawmakers that the ban will be allowed to wither away & die, I'm not really in the giving mood!
Thus, when I received a letter in today's mail from the RNC's Treasurer Mike Retzer, I decided to enclose a friendly little note, rather than the check that I usually stuff into the postage paid envelope that they send...
quote: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Mr. Retzer,
I am enclosing this note to inform you that I will not be donating anymore money to President Bush’s, or any other Republican’s election fund until America’s gun owners receive a public assurance that the so called "Assault Weapons" ban will be allowed to expire without renewal or replacement come September of 2004.
The Republican Party currently controls the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives, in large part, due to the support and efforts of the gun owning public. Any reauthorization of the blatantly unconstitutional "Assault Weapons" ban by Republican lawmakers will be viewed as a betrayal of our God given rights, and as a selling out of the Republican Party’s ideals and core constituency.
As a life long Republican and former financial contributor to the RNC, I sincerely hope that President Bush reconsiders his support of a renewed "Assault Weapons" ban. I also ask that all Republican lawmakers be put on notice that how they handle this matter will greatly effect the future voting and donating habits of many Americans who have, heretofore, considered themselves loyal Republicans.
Yours truly,
(Excerpt) Read more at falfiles.com ...
Keep this in mind though, as you stir up the anti-gunners again and come out of this with nothing but a head ache.
The reasons given during the progress of this thread are not going to convince anyone to allow the ban to sunset.
The only thing you can hope for is a compromise. It is clear that you will not do that so there is no hope to win your battle.
As far as GWB's base is concerned, a political party must alienate some of the base in order to win and keep a majority. Those parties who hold onto the base to the exclusion of others will become a minority party. That is not what the RNC is wanting to do. Your votes, while important, will not change the outcome as the democrat DINO's will come over like they did in the Reagan years. Reagan dumped a portion of his base as well.
If I were you, I would try to extend the sunset a few more years in exchange for no further banned items. But what the hay! You folks are all or nothing and that is what you will get.
Having said that, it has been a good exchange and maybe I touched someones imagination. LOL! Probably not.
FReegards........wirestripper
I really DON'T want to say these things because, on the whole, the ballsey foreign policy of Cheney, Wolfowiz, Rummey and Rice has been good. The Klintoons left Bush holding the bag in this area and he's had to clean up some awful messes that were left festering.
Domestically, the tax cuts have been good although my understanding is that the old nemisis of 'Bracket Creep' will raise it's ugly head, so the gubmint will give with one hand and take with the other. Nonetheless........
.......government is being made larger and more intrusive by THIS administration and I'm starting to get a little feisty over this.
And you agree that the commerce clause overrides the Second Amendment ?
Sarah Brady propaganda.
Read the list of prohibited weapons.
IF you have to THREATEN the group to follow principles that they are SUPPOSED to believe in...you are a total sucker. They don't give a DAMN about YOU or PRINCIPLES, or they wouldn't even have CONSIDERED selling out.
They are INTERESTED in maintaing power at any price, including adopting liberal socialist policies and calling it "stealing the other guys agenda."
This is the same as YOU giving away all your goods to a thief in order to "prevent your home from being robbed."
Even if the commerce clause hadn't been misused to regulate firearms, the power to regulate interstate commerce, whatever that might mean, cannot be used to infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms, which it has been, any more than it could be used to deny freedom of the press, speech or assembly. The nature of the Bill of Rights, as amendments to the Constitution, means that they overide or trump anything in the body of the original document if and when there is a conflict. That is what amendments to any contract or other document do.
Funny then that even after all this time, there are no "undetecable" or all "plastic" guns on the market. The Glock, with a steel barrel and slide, was detecable on standard airport screening devices, of the era in question, let alone more modern and sensitive ones. You could even see the "plastic" parts quite well. It is also detectable by the magnetic detectors, both the kind you walk through and the wand type. Those will detect my smallest belt buckle and the metal eyelets in my shoes. Any firearm with a steel barrel is going to set those off, and there aren't any without a magnetically detectable barrel.
That's right it doesn't, which means keeping and bearing of all arms is protected. As far as the Courts go, the Supreme court hinted, but that's all they did, in Miller (also see Miller documents) that militarily usefull arms was the test. In fact only a few years later, the appeals court in Cases aknowledged that was what the Supreme Court said. From the "Cases" decision:
Apparently, then, under the Second Amendment, the federal government can limit the keeping and bearing of arms by a single individual as well as by a group of individuals, but it cannot prohibit the possession or use of any weapon which has any reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia. However, we do not feet that the Supreme Court in this case was attempting to formulate a general rule applicable to all cases. The rule which it laid down was adequate to dispose of the case before it and that we think was as far as the Supreme Court intended to go. At any rate the rule of the Miller case, if intended to be comprehensive and complete would seem to be already outdated, in spite of the fact that it was formulated only three and a half years ago, because of the well known fact that in the so called "Commando Units" some sort of military use seems to have been found for almost any modern lethal weapon. In view of this, if the rule of the Miller case is general and complete, the result would follow that, under present day conditions, the federal government would be empowered only to regulate the possession or use of weapons such as a flintlock musket or a matchlock harquebus. But to hold that the Second Amendment limits the federal government to regulations concerning only weapons which can be classed as antiques or curiosities, -almost any other might bear some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia unit of the present day,-is in effect to hold that the limitation of the Second Amendment is absolute. Another objection to the rule of the Miller case as a full and general statement is that according to it Congress would be prevented by the Second Amendment from regulating the possession or use by private persons not present or prospective members of any military unit, of distinctly military arms, such as machine guns, trench mortars, anti-tank or anti-aircraft guns, even though under the circumstances surrounding such possession or use it would be inconceivable that a private person could have any legitimate reason for having such a weapon.
So the "Cases" Court didn't approve of the "Miller" rule, and chose to disregard it as "not general". Which is hardly the normal Appeals court response to Supreme Court decisions, especially recent ones.
Besides, there are some people with howitizers in their driveway, or at least their gargage/shed, and not merely deactivated ones either.
Guess I need to pickup another two or three AK's before they take them off the shelf. I love my SAR-1. Fun gun and with a plentiful supply of cheap magazine clips and ammunition, you can spend hours plinking without bothering to reload. Man the barrel gets hot though! Burned myself a few times.
As to it's efficacy, If I had the tools, and the desire, I personally could make you one that would fire a reasonably effective round made of a hard compound that would penetrate and disable, even kill. (zip gun concept)
The fact that none are being produced is not material to the prohibition. The prohibition was based on a potential loophole in the scanners of the day. Not a worry that a major company would put thousands of undetectable guns on the market.
Many long term members of NRA protested the NRA policy. I did and probably the most famous protester was Bush 41. He withdrew his membership as many other did. It was quite a fight.
I think you see only what you want to see regarding this issue. Please remove the blinders and try to understand the fears of the day when hijacking was a weekly/monthly occurrence.
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