Posted on 11/06/2003 6:19:06 PM PST by PsyOp
On Thursday, Federal Judge Carl Barbier ruled against a motion by the city of New Orleans to dismiss a Second Amendment lawsuit involving the city’s confiscation of residents’ firearms in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The suit was brought by the National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment Foundation and names Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Superintendent Warren Riley for violating citizens’ Second Amendment rights.
“We’re encouraged by this latest ruling,” said Alan Gottlieb, founder of the SAF. “For almost a year, we’ve been fighting the city’s delay tactics, which included outright lying by city officials that any firearms had been seized. Only when we threatened Mayor Nagin and Superintendent Riley with a motion for contempt did the city miraculously discover that they actually did have more than 1,000 firearms that had been taken from their owners.”
More than an effort to protect New Orleans gun owners, SAF intends this suit “as a warning to public officials across the country to forget about seizing firearms from their law-abiding owners in the event of a natural or man-made disaster.” The People’s Republic of New Orleans still holds two trailers filled with citizens’ firearms confiscated after Katrina.
18 August 2006, PatriotPost.US, Patriot Vol. 06 No. 33
“You won’t get gun control by disarming law-abiding citizens. There’s only one way to get real gun control: Disarm the thugs and the criminals, lock them up, and if you don’t actually throw away the key, at least lose it for a long time... It’s a nasty truth, but those who seek to inflict harm are not fazed by gun controllers. I happen to know this from personal experience.” —Ronald Reagan, 1983.
The Patriot Post
Patriot Vol. 07 No. 11 Digest | 16 March 2007
The Foundation
“Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.” —Thomas Jefferson
PATRIOT PERSPECTIVE
Right to carry v. right to know
In a St. Louis suburb this week, Riccardo Crossland was charged with robbery and assault after he and another thug held a 23-year-old Florida man at gunpoint, demanding his money. After obtaining his wallet and watch, Crossland turned and took a few steps away from the robbery victim, then turned back and raised his weapon.
Unfortunately for Crossland, the man he was robbing was legally permitted to carry a concealed handgun—and was carrying one at the time. (Florida permits are honored by Missouri. In fact, most Southeastern states—where constitutional rule of law still prevails—have reciprocity agreements for concealed carry permits.)
As Crossland brandished his weapon, the “victim” drew his weapon and opened fire, wounding Crossland. Police arrived soon thereafter, transported Crossland to the hospital, and congratulated his intended victim. Bridgeton Police Major Don Steinman told reporters, “Here was a robbery where we have a good ending.”
In a footnote to this crime, it turns out that Crossland was carrying a pellet gun modeled after a.45 caliber automatic. A shoe-in for the Non Compos Mentis Award, you say? Granted, Crossland was ignorant of the fact that his intended victim could defend himself, but I relate his story only as a segue to introduce the real winner.
That would be one Christian Trejbal, a writer with the Roanoke Times in Virginia.
Trejbal describes himself in his bio as “a philosopher and historian who discovered editorial writing.” He queries, “Who needs to finish a Ph.D.?” Apparently not Trejbal, who is already “piling it higher and deeper” as an editorialist.
Trejbal is the Don Quixote de la Roanoke, who jousts with government-database windmills using the Freedom of Information Act lance. In an editorial last Sunday celebrating “Sunshine Week, the annual week in which we reflect on the importance of open government and public records,” Trejbal boldly went where no man had before. “To mark the occasion,” he wrote, “I want to take you on an excursion into freedom of information land.”
And that he did.
In the interest of public safety, Trejbal and the Roanoke Times would have done a fine public service by launching, say, an Internet database listing paroled violent felons, stalkers and murderers. Instead, however, he went after what he apparently considers an equally dangerous lot.
Trejbal wrote, “A state that puts sex offender data online complete with an interactive map could easily do the same with gun permits, but it does not... There are plenty of reasons to question the wisdom of widespread gun ownership, too.”
That’s right. After obtaining a list of all 135,789 Virginians who are permitted to carry a concealed weapon, Trejbal and his employer posted them in a searchable online database.
According to Trejbal, “People might like to know if their neighbors carry. Parents might like to know if a member of the car pool has a pistol in the glove box. Employees might like to know if employers are bringing weapons to the office.”
One would hope that someone in the Roanoke Times editorial room would have weighed the risk that stalkers, rapists and murderers might also like to know whether a potential victim had a carry permit. Trejbal unintentionally created a “do not mess with” list of Virginians, but what about all the folks who are not on that list?
The paper’s publisher, Debbie Meade, says that she, Editorial Page Editor Dan Radmacher, and Trejbal discussed the pros and cons before posting the database. “I think Dan would say that we probably underestimated the kind of response that this would prompt,” Meade said. “I think we could have asked for a broader and deeper discussion.”
“Underestimated” does not quite capture the tone of the thousands of objections, legal, moral and ethical, the paper received.
As it turns out, the database was only up for about 24 hours before Meade had it removed, “out of a sense of caution and concern for the public.” Perhaps Meade removed the database not “out of a sense of caution” but “out of common sense.” After all, wasn’t the paper’s “concern for the public” the reason it posted the names in the first place? Perhaps it hit too close to home when Meade realized that neither she, nor Radmacher and Trejbal, are listed as permit holders.
Trejbal feigns concern that “so many people have missed the point about the column. It was not fundamentally about guns. It was fundamentally about open government.”
No, it was fundamentally a hit piece against not only those who have concealed carry permits, but any gun owner. As noted above, Trejbal’s original essay justified posting the database because, “There are plenty of reasons to question the wisdom of widespread gun ownership.”
Trejbal is one of those nescient libs who think that crime is a “gun problem” (http://PatriotPost.US/alexander/edition.asp?id=300). Using his logic, one may conclude that black leather gloves cause stabbings, matches cause arson, vehicles cause wrecks, cameras cause pornography, swimsuits cause drowning, cigarette lighters cause cancer, wine glasses cause alcoholism, spoons cause obesity, credit cards cause bankruptcy, elections cause corruption, ad nauseum...
Had “philosopher and historian” Trejbal pursued his Ph.D., he might have come across these words from Lucius Annaeus Seneca, circa 45 AD “Quemadmoeum gladuis neminem occidit, occidentis telum est.” (A sword is never a killer, it is a tool in the killer’s hands.)
I contacted Trejbal and asked him to outline his views on Second Amendment rights, but received no answer. I suspect he doesn’t know that by conservative estimates, handguns are used more than 1.3 million times each year in self-defense. He must not know that convicted violent felons tell researchers that they choose victims they believe are least able to defend themselves, avoiding those likely to have a gun.
Trejbal may not realize that his chances of becoming a victim are significantly reduced by the fact that violent offenders do not know who is likely to be carrying a weapon—well, before Trejbal identified who, in Virginia, is not permitted to carry a concealed weapon.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the criminal use of firearms declined as the number of states issuing concealed-carry permits increased. Yale researcher John Lott addressed the relationship between gun possession and crime, and summed up his research with the title of his book, More Guns, Less Crime.
The relationship between victimization and the ability to defend oneself is timeless. In Commonplace Book, Thomas Jefferson quotes Cesare Beccaria from his seminal work, On Crimes and Punishment: “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
Despite last week’s legal victory for gun-owning residents in Washington, DC, Democrat majorities in the House and Senate, with help from Leftmedia trucklings like Trejbal, are now trying to reincarnate the Feinstein-Schumer gun ban (http://PatriotPost.US/alexander/edition.asp?id=521), which expired 13 September 2004.
In the words of Patrick Henry, “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel.”
quote:
The institutions chiefly alluded to are STANDING ARMIES and the correspondent appendages of military establishments. Standing armies, it is said, are not provided against in the new Constitution; and it is therefore inferred that they may exist under it. Their existence, however, from the very terms of the proposition, is, at most, problematical and uncertain. But standing armies, it may be replied, must inevitably result from a dissolution of the Confederacy. Frequent war and constant apprehension, which require a state of as constant preparation, will infallibly produce them. The weaker States or confederacies would first have recourse to them, to put themselves upon an equality with their more potent neighbors. They would endeavor to supply the inferiority of population and resources by a more regular and effective system of defense, by disciplined troops, and by fortifications. They would, at the same time, be necessitated to strengthen the executive arm of government, in doing which their constitutions would acquire a progressive direction toward monarchy. It is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority.
The expedients which have been mentioned would soon give the States or confederacies that made use of them a superiority over their neighbors. Small states, or states of less natural strength, under vigorous governments, and with the assistance of disciplined armies, have often triumphed over large states, or states of greater natural strength, which have been destitute of these advantages. Neither the pride nor the safety of the more important States or confederacies would permit them long to submit to this mortifying and adventitious superiority. They would quickly resort to means similar to those by which it had been effected, to reinstate themselves in their lost pre-eminence. Thus, we should, in a little time, see established in every part of this country the same engines of despotism which have been the scourge of the Old World. This, at least, would be the natural course of things; and our reasonings will be the more likely to be just, in proportion as they are accommodated to this standard.
quote:
THE power of regulating the militia, and of commanding its services in times of insurrection and invasion are natural incidents to the duties of superintending the common defense, and of watching over the internal peace of the Confederacy.It requires no skill in the science of war to discern that uniformity in the organization and discipline of the militia would be attended with the most beneficial effects, whenever they were called into service for the public defense. It would enable them to discharge the duties of the camp and of the field with mutual intelligence and concert; an advantage of peculiar moment in the operations of an army; and it would fit them much sooner to acquire the degree of proficiency in military functions which would be essential to their usefulness. This desirable uniformity can only be accomplished by confiding the regulation of the militia to the direction of the national authority. It is, therefore, with the most evident propriety, that the plan of the convention proposes to empower the Union "to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, RESERVING TO THE STATES RESPECTIVELY THE APPOINTMENT OF THE OFFICERS, AND THE AUTHORITY OF TRAINING THE MILITIA ACCORDING TO THE DISCIPLINE PRESCRIBED BY CONGRESS."
Hamilton then argues that the formation of the militia by itself should be enough to prevent a standing army from forming.
quote:
Of the different grounds which have been taken in opposition to the plan of the convention, there is none that was so little to have been expected, or is so untenable in itself, as the one from which this particular provision has been attacked. If a well-regulated militia be the most natural defense of a free country, it ought certainly to be under the regulation and at the disposal of that body which is constituted the guardian of the national security. If standing armies are dangerous to liberty, an efficacious power over the militia, in the body to whose care the protection of the State is committed, ought, as far as possible, to take away the inducement and the pretext to such unfriendly institutions. If the federal government can command the aid of the militia in those emergencies which call for the military arm in support of the civil magistrate, it can the better dispense with the employment of a different kind of force. If it cannot avail itself of the former, it will be obliged to recur to the latter. To render an army unnecessary, will be a more certain method of preventing its existence than a thousand prohibitions upon paper.
quote:
``The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole expense of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.
quote:
"But though the scheme of disciplining the whole nation must be abandoned as mischievous or impracticable; yet it is a matter of the utmost importance that a well-digested plan should, as soon as possible, be adopted for the proper establishment of the militia. The attention of the government ought particularly to be directed to the formation of a select corps of moderate extent, upon such principles as will really fit them for service in case of need. By thus circumscribing the plan, it will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia, ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it. This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist."
quote:
There is something so far-fetched and so extravagant in the idea of danger to liberty from the militia, that one is at a loss whether to treat it with gravity or with raillery; whether to consider it as a mere trial of skill, like the paradoxes of rhetoricians; as a disingenuous artifice to instil prejudices at any price; or as the serious offspring of political fanaticism. Where in the name of common-sense, are our fears to end if we may not trust our sons, our brothers, our neighbors, our fellow-citizens? What shadow of danger can there be from men who are daily mingling with the rest of their countrymen and who participate with them in the same feelings, sentiments, habits and interests? What reasonable cause of apprehension can be inferred from a power in the Union to prescribe regulations for the militia, and to command its services when necessary, while the particular States are to have the SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE APPOINTMENT OF THE OFFICERS? If it were possible seriously to indulge a jealousy of the militia upon any conceivable establishment under the federal government, the circumstance of the officers being in the appointment of the States ought at once to extinguish it. There can be no doubt that this circumstance will always secure to them a preponderating influence over the militia.A sample of this is to be observed in the exaggerated and improbable suggestions which have taken place respecting the power of calling for the services of the militia. That of New Hampshire is to be marched to Georgia, of Georgia to New Hampshire, of New York to Kentucky, and of Kentucky to Lake Champlain. Nay, the debts due to the French and Dutch are to be paid in militiamen instead of louis d'ors and ducats. At one moment there is to be a large army to lay prostrate the liberties of the people; at another moment the militia of Virginia are to be dragged from their homes five or six hundred miles, to tame the republican contumacy of Massachusetts; and that of Massachusetts is to be transported an equal distance to subdue the refractory haughtiness of the aristocratic Virginians. Do the persons who rave at this rate imagine that their art or their eloquence can impose any conceits or absurdities upon the people of America for infallible truths?
If there should be an army to be made use of as the engine of despotism, what need of the militia? If there should be no army, whither would the militia, irritated by being called upon to undertake a distant and hopeless expedition, for the purpose of riveting the chains of slavery upon a part of their countrymen, direct their course, but to the seat of the tyrants, who had meditated so foolish as well as so wicked a project, to crush them in their imagined intrenchments of power, and to make them an example of the just vengeance of an abused and incensed people? Is this the way in which usurpers stride to dominion over a numerous and enlightened nation? Do they begin by exciting the detestation of the very instruments of their intended usurpations? Do they usually commence their career by wanton and disgustful acts of power, calculated to answer no end, but to draw upon themselves universal hatred and execration? Are suppositions of this sort the sober admonitions of discerning patriots to a discerning people? Or are they the inflammatory ravings of incendiaries or distempered enthusiasts? If we were even to suppose the national rulers actuated by the most ungovernable ambition, it is impossible to believe that they would employ such preposterous means to accomplish their designs.
-PJ
“Gun control historically serves as a gateway to tyranny... Only armed citizens can resist tyrannical government.” —Rep. Ron Paul.
Unfortunately it is Hamilton's very statements that have been used through misinterpretation to support the notion that states have the right to regulate the ownership of guns.
They get away with this because people have forgotten that the "militia" consisted of every able-bodied male "citizen", and that it was not simply a state controlled "reserve army".
I've also posted these quotes:
The Federalist Papers
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/focus/news/669460/posts
Court overturns DC gun ban
March, 16 2007.
In a major triumph for the Constitution, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled last Friday that the Second Amendment means exactly what it says. Six plaintiffs had sued the District, saying that their rights were infringed by the District’s ban on hand guns. In the 2-1 decision the majority agreed, tossing the District’s gun ban onto the scrap heap of history.
Even more surprising was the straightforward logic the court used in reaching its decision, going back to the words of the Founders. From the ruling: “To summarize, we conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad).” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. The ruling is truly sweeping in its scope, and while the District said it will appeal, losing such an appeal has the potential to sweep aside more of the nation’s anti-gun laws.
Second wind for the Second (Amendment)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1802044/posts?page=1
“This is not about personal freedom—getting shot in the workplace by someone who has retrieved a gun from the parking lot is the opposite of freedom. This is about preserving the ability of companies to make workplaces as safe as they can be, and free from gun violence.” — Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign on state legislatures contemplating the restoration of 2nd Amendment rights stripped away by PC companies.
Citizens Crime Comission (Rudy Giuliani on Guns)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1808335/posts
Gun-Shy Liberals - Who cares about the Second Amendment?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1809385/posts?
The high-water mark of anti-gun-rights shabbiness was the 2000 release of Arming America by then-Emory University historian Michael Bellesiles. The book purported to prove that gun ownership was never a major part of American society and that America’s gun culture was a useful myth for the gun-nutters eager to make the Second Amendment mean something it doesn’t. The book received lavish praise from the liberal establishment, including a rave review by Gary Wills in The New York Times, and won Columbia University’s prestigious Bancroft Prize.
The only problem was that the whole thing was an elaborate hoax, perpetrated with faked or nonexistent evidence. Intellectually honest liberals had to recant. The Bancroft Prize was revoked. Wills admitted: “I was took. The book is a fraud.”
for later reading; too much good to pass up
American Thinker ^ | April 19, 2007 | Janet Ellen Levy
Posted on 04/19/2007 8:26:50 AM PDT by Kaslin
With the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech in which 32 people were slain on campus by a lone gunman who turned his weapon on himself, no doubt the clamor to ban personal ownership of guns will be raised again. Yet amidst the grief and anguish over this terrible incident it should be noted that the campus itself had gained a well-known reputation as a "gun free zone."
Virginia Tech earned that reputation from widespread, national coverage arising from the 2005 disciplining of a student who brought a permitted firearm on campus. That reputation was further enhanced in January of 2006, when H.B. 1572, a bill that would have given students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus, was quashed in subcommittee review before it ever got to the Virginia General Assembly for a vote. Meanwhile, last June, Virginia Tech's governing board passed a violence prevention policy that further strengthened the ban against weapons on campus.
With the notoriety of its no-gun policy as a backdrop, the Virginia Tech campus thus ensured that students and faculty were practically sitting ducks, stripped of their ability to defend themselves during Monday's tragic sniper shooting. Who can say if the methodical shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, a senior who was a Virginia Tech student during the 2005 student-disciplining incident, was aware of the school's reputation and took it into account? What can be said, however, is that this most recent disaster, featured prominently on the national stage, underscores for many how necessary is our constitutional right to bear arms. ...
Bookmarked.
Bump! McClintock is one of the best if not thee best out there. I really fear for our republic when people want to elect “celebrities” over men and women with ideas. Esp. those who seem to understand the life and everyday struggles of the common men and women they choose to serve (as opposed to “celebrities” that live in a cloistered isolated world).
bttt
Unarmed And Dangerous
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1820609/posts
IBD Editorials ^ | 20 April 2007 | Staff
Gun Control: Five years ago, armed college students subdued a gunman embarking on a college killing spree. Last year, Virginia Tech applauded the fact that its students couldn’t do the same.
On Jan. 16, 2002 , a killer stalked the campus of the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Va., not far from the site of Monday’s massacre at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. A disgruntled former student killed Law Dean L. Anthony Sutin, associate professor Thomas Blackwell and a student.
Two of the three law students who overpowered Peter Odighizuwa before he could kill more innocent victims were armed. Mikael Gross and Tracy Bridges, seeing the killing spree begin, went to their cars, retrieved their guns and used them to disarm the shooter. ...
Gun control isn’t the answer
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1820712/posts
LA Times ^ | April 20, 2007 | James Q. Wilson
Posted on 04/20/2007 8:47:13 AM PDT by neverdem
Why one reaction to Virginia Tech shouldn’t be tightening firearm laws.
THE TRAGEDY at Virginia Tech may tell us something about how a young man could be driven to commit terrible actions, but it does not teach us very much about gun control.
So far, not many prominent Americans have tried to use the college rampage as an argument for gun control. One reason is that we are in the midst of a presidential race in which leading Democratic candidates are aware that endorsing gun control can cost them votes.
This concern has not prevented the New York Times from editorializing in favor of “stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage.” Nor has it stopped the European press from beating up on us unmercifully.
Leading British, French, German, Italian and Spanish newspapers have blamed the United States for listening to Charlton Heston and the National Rifle Assn. Many of their claims are a little strange. At least...
—snip—
AS FOR THE European disdain for our criminal culture, many of those countries should not spend too much time congratulating themselves. In 2000, the rate at which people were robbed or assaulted was higher in England, Scotland, Finland, Poland, Denmark and Sweden than it was in the United States. The assault rate in England was twice that in the United States. In the decade since England banned all private possession of handguns, the BBC reported that the number of gun crimes has gone up sharply.
Some of the worst examples of mass gun violence have also occurred in Europe. In recent years, 17 students and teachers were killed by a shooter in one incident at a German public school; 14 legislators were shot to death in Switzerland, and eight city council members were shot to death near Paris...
keepin’ track...
Zogby: Gun Control Won’t Prevent Tragedy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1820860/posts
NewsMax ^ | April 20, 2007
Most Americans don’t believe that stricter U.S. gun control policies would help prevent tragedies such as this week’s shootings at Virginia Tech, a new MSN-Zogby poll shows.
While 59 percent don’t think stricter gun control policies would help, 36 percent believe they could make a difference by helping to prevent future shootings.
More than two in three Americans (69 percent) believe the recent shootings at Virginia Tech were the actions of a deranged man determined to inflict mayhem and could not have been prevented. But 16 percent believe stricter controls of guns and ammunition would have prevented the tragedy.
The interactive survey of 1,336 adults nationwide was conducted April 17-18 with a margin of error of +/- 2.7 percentage points. Younger adults are more likely than older adults to see stricter gun policies as a means of preventing shootings: among those 18 to 29 years of age, 39 percent say more stringent gun control could avert tragic shootings, compared to 26 percent of those age 65 and older.
But more than half (53 percent) of those age 18 to 29 say increased gun control won’t help, a stance that becomes increasingly prevalent as adults get older. Nearly three in four (72 percent) of those age 65 and older don’t think tighter gun control policies will prevent shootings.
Even if more people were allowed to carry guns for protection, 54 percent of Americans don’t believe it would help prevent tragedies such as the mass shooting at Virginia Tech, the poll shows. But overall, 38 percent believe more armed Americans could prevent future tragedies.
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