First step.
Second step:
letters@baltsun.com
for Letters to the Editor (be sure to include contact information, including your full name and both day and evening phone numbers)...
--Boris
Sir:
G. Jefferson Price III may not be on the NRA's "enemies list" but he is certainly on MINE. I was born in Baltimore, but I escaped. Mr. Price reminds me of why. If he wants to "eliminate" guns, let him work to pass an Amendment which repeals the Second Amendment, which he not only misquotes but holds in such contempt.
The Bill of Rights is not a chinese-restaurant menu. You cannot select only those amendments which please you and reject those that do not. For leftists of Price's stripe, the Bill of Rights consists only of the First, Fifth, and (by extension) the Fourteenth Amendments.
If Mr. Price wishes to "elminate" guns, I invite him to come to California and attempt to take mine first.
--Boris
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My name is not 'Buford'. I am Jewish and reasonably well-educated (B.S., Mechanical Engineering, Cornell University; M.S., Aerospace Engineering, M.I.T.). My parents remembered the holocaust, and taught me what the Nazis did to unarmed and helpless Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto and the abattoirs of the camps.
I am also a gun owner. I own ten handguns, two rifles, and a shotgun. In a temper of pure contrariness, I recently placed an order for an "assault weapon". Before obtaining this gun, I will undergo, for the 14th time, a background check by the Attorney General to certify that I am reasonably sane, have no criminal record, and am not a danger to myself or others. How this 14th certification will prevent crimes of passion is a mystery: should I go mad and decide to kill my neighbor, one of my existing weapons will do the job admirably. I will not go down to my local gun store to purchase a new gun just for this purpose. A little thought will show that the "background check" for people who already own guns can serve no purpose other than pure harassment.
The propaganda campaign is being employed against us as was used against smokers and tobacco companies. The two cases are similar: both involved propaganda against law-abiding users and purveyors of a legal product. Anti-gun fanatics have become quite expert in various techniques of propaganda. One of the most effective is to construct scare phrases such as "Cop Killer Bullet", "Assault Weapon", "Spray[ed] bullets", and so on. They are working assiduously to confuse the term "Semi-Automatic" with "Automatic". (An automatic weapon is a machine gun. Virtually all handguns, and many rifles, are semi-automatic--meaning that one bullet is fired for each pull of the trigger. The sixgun that Wyatt Earp used was a "semi-automatic" weapon, as was the .45-caliber pistol used in World War II by U.S. servicemen, a pistol invented in 1911.)
This is done in order to define the terms of the debate and thus to "win" it before it begins. Indeed, reasoned debate is the last thing they want: they rely upon emotionalism and hysteria rather than logic. The anti-gun crowd is perfectly dishonest. They pretend, for example, that "13 children a day" are "killed by guns". In order to derive this number, they assume that everyone under 21 is a "child". The vast majority of "children" who die by gunfire are gang members, who are murdering each other in wars over money, drugs, and turf. But it is far more important for the anti-gun zealots to invoke a false image of innocent six-year-olds being gunned down in the street.
Logic and facts would reveal, for example, that there are 60 million gun owners in the U.S., and approximately 200 million firearms. 99.5% of all firearms are never used in any crime. For 223 years, the United States has had a large number of firearms without massacres like that at Columbine. Guns, in fact, were more readily available before 1960 than now--and such rampages were rare. This suggests that it is not guns but other factors that lead to these killings. And Professor John Lott of the University of Chicago has shown that ownership of firearms actually prevents violent crime. But the debate is no longer about logic and facts.
If there are roughly 65 million adult males in the U.S., and each year 0.01% of them go insane, and one percent of them decide to murder, then there will be 65 insane killers per year, roughly 5 per month. If one-fifth of those insane killers use a gun, then the anti- gun propagandists will have one atrocity a month to use in their campaign. If the killer instead uses a car, a fertilizer bomb, poison, or a chainsaw, the crime is printed on page 32 of the paper, and all of the compassion of the gun-grabbers is withheld.
Now I know how smokers must feel. At a recent dinner party, I mentioned in conversation that I own guns and shoot them as a hobby. A shocked silence descended on the room. It was as if I had casually admitted a taste for human flesh, or a rare sexual perversion as yet unapproved by Hollywood. Guests eyed me suspiciously, as if I might at any moment produce a weapon and begin "spraying" bullets. In point of fact, having been repeatedly certified by the State A.G. as a solid citizen, sane and non-violent, I am one of the least likely to perpetrate an outrage. But all of the current gun-law frenzy is directed at me and other law-abiding gun owners.
The current uproar over "straw purchases" is truly amusing in a sad way. If straw purchasers--defined as persons with no criminal record who buy guns to resell to criminals--are indeed a problem, then the State Attorney General has not been doing his job. If I were to purchase, say, 12 handguns in May, and another 12 in June, one would expect the state Attorney General to inquire what I am doing with so many weapons. Evidently he has not been inquiring when others make repeated straw purchases. Instead, he supported the "one-gun-a-month" law, apparently out of laziness--it is, after all, the failure of his office that "necessitated" it. Has anyone accused the Attorney General of nonfeasance? It would seem that he is more culpable than are gun owners--if straw purchases are really the problem they are said to be.
The present hysterical drumbeat against firearms is dangerous on many levels. It demonstrates the corruption of American political debate, and the debasement of education. Citizens are no longer taught the meaning or purpose of the Bill of Rights, and critical thinking skills are actively discouraged by the schools--in favor of 'feelings' and non-rational discourse. When friends ask me my definition of a "conservative", I tell them: 'Conservatives are the people who can read the Constitution--and have the temerity to believe it means exactly what it says.'
The Second Amendment says, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." This is plain language, and before America was deconstructed by the Left, its meaning was clear. "Infringe," says my dictionary, means "to break (a law or agreement); fail to observe the terms of; violate; trespass; encroach, meddle." That seems clear enough. And anyone who has studied the Federalist Papers cannot avoid the conclusion that the Founders clearly intended for private citizens to have the right to keep and bear arms--without interference.
Yet the Second Amendment, like those other step-children of the Bill of Rights, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, is simply ignored. A curious sort of blindness--of tunnel vision--infects those who want to "control" guns. They stridently adopt an absolutist position on the First Amendment, but avert their eyes when the Second is mentioned--they wish it would just go away. (Ask the ACLU, "dedicated to upholding the Bill of Rights", how many defenses of the Second Amendment they have mounted.) But the Bill of Rights is not a Chinese Restaurant menu: you may not choose those rights you admire and reject those you deplore. The current fashion--of adopting laws which are clearly unconstitutional, and blandly ignoring criticisms based upon the constitution--is a step toward totalitarianism. It is the substitution of brute force for the rule of law. If one can violate the constitution and its clear meaning simply because one can, then the rule of law is dead--and might makes right.
If the gun-control crowd had an ounce of honesty and integrity, they would forthrightly admit that their goal is to outlaw all firearms and confiscate them. Then they would straightforwardly propose--and work to get ratified--an Amendment which repeals the Second Amendment. But they know the American people would never vote to abrogate a part of the Bill of Rights. So they prefer the incremental, "boiled frog" approach--achieving by stealth and gradualism what they cannot obtain openly. To call this strategy "dishonest" is an understatement.
"...tens of thousands of innocent people have been killed, and for what? For the sake of preserving "the right to bear arms"? That's not good enough."
So for what cause did those 43,000 who were killed on our roads die? There were 28,000 killed by firearms in 2000. If self-defense and safety were not good enough to justify 28,000 firearms deaths (a good number of whom were criminals killed by policemen in the commission of a felony), then is vehicular transport "good enough" of a reason to justify 43,000 dead? Should we give up vehicular transport since it comes at a cost of 43,000 lives each year?
A-WAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaa....
And the problem with this is? (Aside from the definition of "respectable" newspapers, like the lying NYT perhaps?, and "good movies", like the equally fraudulent "Bowling for Columbine" maybe?)
We'd rather be FReeping or shooting anyway.
Military weapons in hands of gangs
By John Kidman, Frank Walker and Eamonn Duff
October 19, 2003 The Sun-Herald [Australia]
Police Commissioner Ken Moroney yesterday offered to speak personally with anyone giving information on the spate of deadly shootings that have shaken Sydney. The commissioner's offer is the latest desperate attempt to break the wall of silence in an escalating battle with heavily armed gangs involved in crime in the south-western suburbs.
Yesterday, the man who survived a double murder in Greenacre on Monday night was taken back to the bullet-riddled house as detectives executed a search warrant. Ali Hamka lost his wife Mervat and friend Ziad Razzak after a drive-by shooting saw his home sprayed with a shower of more than 100 bullets.
An investigation into the current spate of gun crimes by The Sun-Herald has exposed a horrific new dimension to the city's organised gang culture: some are now armed with weapons of war. Grenades have been found at the scenes of two recent gang attacks, while police are investigating reports that one group has acquired an assault rifle fitted with a grenade launcher. Some believe the weapons to have been imported from the war zones of the Middle East.
The investigation shows drive-by shootings and attacks are now occurring with a new and frightening regularity. A research project undertaken by the NSW Opposition estimates that a potentially life-threatening firearms incident now takes place somewhere in NSW every 43 hours.
With almost unlimited access to handguns and in some cases, military-styled assault weapons, at least six ethnic-based rival groups have been engaged in tit-for-tat bloodletting across just a handful of Sydney suburbs for the past 18 months.
At least 118 drive-by shootings, kneecappings, murders, armed robberies and other gun offences have occurred since March. Yet these are simply the incidents which have been reported by the media, with the real number estimated to be higher still. While official statistics on gang shootings are not kept, Mr Moroney yesterday described the current state of lawlessness as a form of "urban terrorism" and as the worst he had seen in four decades.
"They are urban terrorists. They are disturbing the safety, security and wellbeing of the community. These people are criminals and murderers. They are not frightened of the prison system. They are not frightened of the police. "There is a culture within these people, a belief system within these people that makes them not frightened. We have got to be able to break that down, and in order to break it down there are a variety of community leaders who are earnestly seeking to work with us to provide an inroad to these people."
Mr Moroney hit back at Opposition police spokesman Peter Debnam who had said Sydney was being ruled by 1000 men armed with guns rather than police and government.
"I find comments that there are 1000 guns on the streets alarmist in the extreme, and not helpful to the resolution of the issue," Mr Moroney said. But police sources say heavily armed rivalsyndicates fighting primarily over drug turf have been "running out of control" in the Bankstown-Fairfield area since at least mid-2001. The past 10 months had witnessed a frightening escalation in both the gang's access to weaponry and willingness to kill, they said.
Following last Monday's double murder at Greenacre, police recovered more than 100 spent .45 and .22 calibre bullets along with two unfired semi-automatic pistols. However, The Sun-Herald has learned that detectives are probing reports that those responsible may have originally intended to blast the modest fibro home with a grenade-launching rifle.
A live grenade was also discovered concealed in a freezer inside the house, while in another gang-related attack at Fairfield earlier this year, a grenade was lobbed into a backyard but failed to explode.
Semi-automatic pistols and a military assault rifle were used to execute 34-year-old father-of-four Ali Abdulrazak at Lakemba on September 29. His 24-year-old nephew, Ziad Razzak was killed in Monday's drive-by assault at Greenacre. Police insist they know who is behind the killings but lost trace of their suspects following an ill-timed tactical response raid on a home at Punchbowl in the wake of Mr Abdulrazak's murder about six weeks ago.
Strike force police believe the suspects have abandoned their regular hideouts and are "house-hopping" with the help of friends and relatives whilst playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with their enemies. The gangs-gun debate has also caused a troubling split along rank lines within the police force, The Sun-Herald has learned. Faced with evidence of up to two dozen unsolved gang shootings being investigated by Fairfield police alone, one detective is known to have written to Deputy Police Commissioner David Madden with his concerns late last year.
Mr Madden has so far not responded to the claim. An internal police inquiry is also said to be underway into complaints lodged by detectives over a senior officer's insistence that the Bankstown area did not have a problem with gangs or drugs, earlier this year.
Like Britain, Australia is experiencing a crime wave unprecedented for that country. While there are several factors involved, one of the big ones is the recent Australian Gun Grab from the citzenry. A disarmed citizenry is caught between armed crooks and armed agents of government. Its so obvious that an armed citzenry provides the BEST deterrence against criminal behavior. "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." Welcome to reality, Mr. Price. The author is nothing more than a mere "useful idiot", or worse, a haidmaiden of tyranny.
First step.
Second step: