BUSH'S ASSAULT ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT

"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling in terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand. The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst; the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!" -- The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I have just finished reading Vin Suprynowicz's superlative book Send in the Waco Killers, as well as his Memorial Day column. I want to tie together these two works, the above quote from Solzhenitsyn, and the Bush Administration's recent announcement that commercial air pilots not be allowed to have firearms in the cockpit.

In the book, Suprynowicz discusses how the feds egregiously overstepped their bounds in their unprovoked harassment of Randy Weaver, and the murder of his wife and son, at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in the summer of 1992. He then goes into exhaustive detail in assigning guilt to the feds in the incineration of 80-plus innocent people at Waco, Texas, on April 19, 1993.

There are two common schools of thought surrounding these despicable episodes. One says that Randy Weaver was a white supremacist and that the Davidians had weird religious beliefs, so they deserved what they got. This view is commonly held by the same folks who preach diversity and tolerance. Evidently, they will tolerate you as long as you are not too diverse.

The other school of thought says that these were isolated events and not part of a larger pattern of behavior by the federal government. When they came for the white supremacists they did not say anything because they were not white supremacists. When they came for the Davidians, they did not say anything because they were not Davidians.

People of the latter mindset tend to believe that violations of others' rights have no bearing on them. Thus, when they come for the druggies, they do not say anything because they are not druggies. (Indeed, while they may condemn what happened at Waco and Ruby Ridge, they eagerly applaud the work of the DEA.)

In the column, Suprynowicz asks us to remember this Memorial Day the four brave passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93, who, on September 11, thwarted the hijackers' attempt to fly the plane into either the Capitol or the White House and instead caused it to crash near Pittsburgh. He writes, "In that one brief moment, Todd Beamer and Jeremy Glick, Thomas Burnett Jr. and Mark Bingham ceased to be 'civilians.' Surely they've earned their medals and their flags -- and surely those who follow in their footsteps should no longer be disarmed by their own government -- do you think?"

Ever since September 11, I have marveled how those who purport to believe in limited government and individual liberty have eagerly surrendered their freedom in the name of security. Would they relinquish their freedom as willingly in support of the agenda of a President Al Gore?

They reply that the government "had to do something" in the wake of these atrocities. I thought it was only liberals who clamor for their government to do something when disaster strikes. Conservatives say they believe that self-reliance, not government, solves problems.

Rush Limbaugh rejoices in poll results indicating that more and more Americans trust their government to do the right thing now than at any time in over thirty years. Limbaugh, along with the rest of the Republican amen corner in the media, reassure us that Bush's motives are pure and that he "knows what's good for the country." So when GWB supports restrictions on our freedom, he "must know what he is doing", so they put their blessing on it.

For quite some time, these people have told me that, although they favor the Second Amendment, we "have to put some restrictions" on gun ownership. It's, like, we cannot let "just anyone" have a gun. (Isn't it interesting that O.J. Simpson, Andrea Yates, and Tim McVeigh committed their crimes without guns? Do these folks not similarly believe that we cannot let "just anyone" have access to knives, bathtubs, and fertilizer?)

Federally mandated airport security measures have become so much a part of our culture that - like state education and Social Security - we never even question them anymore. We just split hairs as to how much the feds should do to make us "feel secure". It's, like, we cannot let people carry guns on planes, because if we did, like, something bad might happen.

Well, something bad did happen last September 11. And what did the feds do in response? More of what they had been doing before September 11.

For decades, the security system at America's airports has served to deter only law-abiding citizens. It is as if someone insane enough to fly a jumbo jet into a skyscraper would give a rip about such pantywaist measures. Evil abhors a vacuum. When you disarm innocent people, as night follows day, bad things happen. Gun-free schools made the left the students and faculty of Columbine High School defenseless against Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Gun-free planes made the passengers of four airplanes easy pickings for the September 11 terrorists. Had America been a free country, had the Second Amendment still sported a few teeth, and had we not required people to surrender their constitutional rights when they walked through the airplane door, these passengers would have been able to retaliate. Indeed, the terrorists probably would have written off hijacking airplanes as futile.

Yet what did the George W. Bush administration do? It clamped down even harder on the rights of innocent people to defend themselves than did the Administration from the Bowels of Hell (i.e. the Clinton administration). And despite the protestations of pilots and Second Amendment advocates across the land, his administration has continued to forbid pilots to arm themselves. But since GWB is not the man about town that his predecessor was, so many people put this totally unfounded childlike trust in him. His policies make them feeeeeeel so much safer. (Doesn't Rush Limbaugh constantly remind us of the importance of thinking over feeling when it comes to liberal policies?)

When they came for the air travelers, many did not say anything, not because they were not air travelers, but because their boy was coming for them. And because it was GWB who came for them, they felt oh so secure. Bush is not Hitler. (Nor, for that matter, was Clinton.) He is not sending air travelers to death camps, but he is denying them that most fundamental of rights: the right to self-defense. And he is not merely denying the rights of people with weird religious or racial views. He is denying the rights of many millions of mainstream Americans, i.e. anyone who flies on an airplane.

There is only one great debate in politics: shall we have more government or less government? To the extent that we expand government, we deny people their God-given, constitutionally guaranteed rights. No matter who implements a dangerous policy, it remains a dangerous policy.

Big government is bad government, no matter who is in charge. Bad policies deserve condemnation regardless of who is behind them. If we continue to expand government indefinitely, it is only a matter of time before we arrive at a totalitarian state of affairs. And this, brothers and sisters, will not feel very good.

I can see it now. Somewhere in heaven, someone is paraphrasing Solzhenitsyn as he recounts his last moments on September 11.

"The horror was absolutely unimaginable. What would things have been like if the terrorists, when they were plotting these atrocities, had been uncertain whether the passengers aboard those planes would be armed or not armed? Or if, after they had so much as threatened that first stewardess, people had not simply sat there in their seats, paling in terror, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly surrounded the attackers brandishing guns, knives, knitting needles and whatever else was at hand. The terrorists would very quickly have realized that, notwithstanding all of their thirst; their efforts to mess with the American people would be totally futile. 3000 lives would have been spared, and September 11 would have been just another day."

"Yet what did the George W. Bush administration do? It clamped down even harder on the rights of innocent people to defend themselves than did the Administration from the Bowels of Hell (i.e. the Clinton administration)."

How??

"And despite the protestations of pilots and Second Amendment advocates across the land, his administration has continued to forbid pilots to arm themselves."

The Bush Administration signed into law the right for pilots to be given the option of arming themselves. That's hardly assaulting the Second Amendment as the title for this thread claims. True, Democratic Party holdover Mineta in the Department of Transportation is refusing to allow that option to be given to commercial pilots, but that's hardly a grand assault on the 2nd Amendment by Bush.

This article also ignores the fact that Bush appointed Ashcroft and Olsen, who just finished writing to the Supreme Court to notify SCOTUS that the official U.S. position on the 2nd is that it protects an individual, not a collective right. Again, that is hardly an assault on the 2nd as this thread claims.

The author of the article is a Libertarian. Look around FR. Libertarians are bashing Bush at every turn.

Mustn't let facts get in the way of their rants, either...

Look, I'm willing to dismiss the comments about Bush. However, passing off Ruby Ridge and Waco as bureaucratic snafu is wrong.

Eighty people died at Waco. It was handled pitifly from the beginning to the end, but it wasn't simply a snafu. One FBI agent politely told the mother of David Koresh that he hoped she had said good-bye, because he wasn't coming out alive. Pardon me, but that's an indication that 80 people died as a result of a planned murder, not just the result of an accidental fire.

How did the top of that bunker get blown out if the deaths were just a bureaucratic snafu, the deaths as a result of an accident?

Reasonable is reasonable, but murder is murder too.

First: What the hell am I doing up this late when I have to get up in 3, make that 2 hours??

Second: OPH, you are correct. I fail to understand the fixation on Waco and Ruby Ridge. They were bad. They were the result of bad decisions by a whole bunch of people, some, or even many, of whom are not evil, they're just civil servants.

They work for a big organization. And we know what happens to organizations when they get big. They get stupid. See any large corporation, American or otherwise. No matter how successful and full of bright people, eventually the incentives system skews toward illogical and/or counterproductive outcomes. And so, those are the outcomes you get.

And yeah, some of the people are bad, stupid, evil, etc. But not all. Maybe the people at the top (Reno, etc.) were evil geniuses bent of subverting America. But the battleship of the bureaucracy takes a long time to turn, and I wager that these outcomes could have occurred no matter who was in charge, because, as you observed, bureaucrats operate in an incompetent, hamhanded fashion. They do this because there is no incentive to operate in a different fashion, and the hiring system tends to staff the bureaucracy with incompetent, hamhanded types.

It isn't a conspiracy, folks. It is what you get with an ever-growing government.

It is exactly what the Founders and the Framers were afraid of.

They knew we didn't need an actual Tyrant to end up with Tyranny. (though that makes it easier) All that is needed is unfettered government. They tried, and created, a limited government. Unfortunately, their successors have had over 200 years to grow the beast.

Power corrupts. We are reaping a harvest that has been sown over a long, long time.

Both atrocities could have been prevented. In the case of Waco, the Davidians and Koresh in particular had 54 days to just come out or at least send the women and kids out. Hell even at the Alamo, the defenders sent the women and kids out of harms way. On the Feds side they could have just hunkered down and waited. Ruby Ridge is the same scenario. Weaver had 18 months to answer the gun rap and decided to make a "last stand". It is ironic that the only ones that actually made the "last stand" was his wife and son and he walked away with 3.1 mil. The Feds OTH were despicable in their handling of the final show down. The assembly of fire power was obscene and the US Marshall that lied about the initial contact with the kid should be breaking rocks. Both sides hold equal responsibility for both events.

"Most of the time, bureaucrats and administrators are merely incompetent and hamhanded, not evil conspirators." I generally agree with this statement. But...when these liberal fish all school in the same direction, their actions are the same as if they were conspirators. In other words, what's the difference? You can burn down the compound because you are inept or because you all decided to burn it down. Either way, it means the same thing to me.

Getting back to the issue of Mineta prohibiting the arming of pilots. Does it make sense to eliminate the last resort for a hijacker to be thwarted and turn the job over to a military pilot to shoot down and kill every person on that plane? If everybody is going to be killed, why not let the hijacking take its course and let the hijacker fly into any building he wants?

The lives on that plane mean just as much as any lives that might be lost at the target area. To carry the stupidity a bit farther, why not let the military pilot send a missile into the target that the hijacker wants to hit and save the lives of the airline personnel and passengers? Why be so selective on who you want killed? The simple matter is that anybody and everybody has the right and duty to exercise self-defense.

"Most of the time, bureaucrats and administrators are merely incompetent and hamhanded, not evil conspirators"

I will offer the great exceptions that test your thesis....William Jefferson Blythe Clnton and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Heaven preserve us from a Hillary presidency. You will see abuses of our political system and the law that will make Stalin look like a little kid in short pants.

Regards,

It will come to this: their sins vs. our sins. In other words, if you satisfy them in their belief of sinlessness, it will only feed their paranoia, thinking they were right and that we all need to be suspected of something.

Jurisdiction trumps physiology, either we will learn it when fighting them back at their delusions, or we will learn it to survive in the Gulag. Your choice.

There's something contradictory about saying yes the bad guys are attacking us, so let's clamp down on gun rights. It's precisely because the bad guys ARE attacking us that so many people are purchasing guns for self-defense.

The Second Amendment is pretty straightforward in my opinion, and for good reason. To protect citizens from a potentially tyrannical government. There are plenty of laws to help keep guns out of the hands of those who shouldn't have them, so enforce them. Even though criminals will always get guns no matter what laws are passed. Just look at Britain and Australia where the government legislated gun restriction to save the population from themselves.

there are all kinds of compromises that have to be made along the way in life

EXACTLY! You and Neville Chamberlin are in complete agreement on this. When a mass murderer comes and demands to kill you and your family, by all means compromise. Don't pull out a gun and send him to his eternal reward (after all, the Republicans don't want you armed any more than the Democrats do). Let him kill HALF of your family. This is compromise at its finest.

Yep. Ask the surviving members of the Alday family about the need for the DP. In 1973 six members of the Ned Alday family (Mr. Alday, 3 sons, a brother and a daughter-in-law) near Donalsonville were brutally murdered one by one (the daughter-in-law was also raped) by Maryland escapee Carl Isaacs and 3 others.

Issacs et al were convicted and sentenced by a Seminole County jury in 1974 for the brutal murders. In 1985 (11 years later) that was overturned by the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals on the grounds that pretrial publicity denied them a fair trial in Seminole County. In 1988 Isaacs was again convicted and sentenced to death (retried in Houston County). As of 2001, there have been two trials and 52 hearings, yet 29 years later Isaacs remains on death row.

I saw those graves, in a little cemetary behind a country church near their farm. My wife and daughters cried, and that was 25 years after the slayings.

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