Posted on 04/06/2004 12:51:37 PM PDT by kimber
| PITTSBURGH - In touting its selection of the Steel City for its 133rd annual convention, the National Rifle Association talks up the region's strong membership and Pennsylvania's rich hunting traditions. At last year's convention in Orlando, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush credited the 4 million-member NRA with helping his brother win the 2000 presidential election. "Were it not for your active involvement, it's safe to say my brother may not have been president of the United States," he said. The NRA hasn't endorsed a candidate yet, but NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre said Monday that "gun owners in massive numbers do not want to go back to the days of Clinton and Gore." Presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry, he said, "is certainly no friend of the Second Amendment." NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said "Pennsylvania is going to be a battleground state again. We certainly will be working to activate our base." Although Democratic nominee Al Gore defeated Bush in Pennsylvania in 2000 by four percentage points, Arulanandam said the decision to hold its convention here wasn't made because of that. Host cities are selected five to six years out, he said. Events at "Freedom's Steel," which runs April 16 through April 20 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, include a prayer breakfast; a game call challenge; and sessions on women's wear and wilderness gear, methods of concealed carrying, and hunts in Africa. The NRA expects nearly 60,000 people to attend. LaPierre said the convention would be "a celebration of this American freedom to own firearms and hunt" and would reflect on the expansion of gun rights over the past 25 years. Back then, he said, only a handful of states had right-to-carry laws; now 37 have them. Rocker Ted Nugent is also listed on the schedule. Vice President Dick Cheney was scheduled to be the keynote speaker, though LaPierre said he couldn't confirm whether Cheney was coming. Meanwhile, gun control advocates plan to hold their own events. They include a teach-in at the University of Pittsburgh, a candlelight vigil to remember victims of gun violence and a concert, according to Nathaniel Glosser of Confluence Against Gun Violence, a coalition of local organizations. Glosser said they will be trying to draw attention to two gun control issues: the continuation of the federal assault weapons ban and Pennsylvania's lack of "child access prevention laws." Eighteen states have some form of the law, which holds gun owners responsible if children have their gun. The accidental fatal shooting of a letter carrier last summer by a 9-year-old boy in suburban Pittsburgh underscores the need for such a law, Glosser said. The boy's mother, Latoya Burnette, is charged with illegally possessing a handgun under federal law. She was not permitted to have it after her 2000 conviction for assault with a deadly weapon in North Carolina. "We're not antigun. We're not against the responsible ownership of firearms," Glosser said. "We're in favor of laws that will keep guns out of the hands of children, the mentally ill and criminals." LaPierre said states can already prosecute such cases under criminal negligence laws. The assault weapons ban, which expires September, is "nothing but an incremental effort to ban more firearms," Arulanandam said. "We feel that this is an ineffective law based on studies by the Clinton Justice Department, that this law is ineffective in reducing crime," he said. "We feel it ought to sunset." |
A teach-in. How quaint. So 60's.
"We're not antigun. We're not against the responsible ownership of firearms," Glosser said. "We're in favor of laws that will keep guns out of the hands of children, the mentally ill and criminals."
Glosser is the perfect example of a gun-control nut without a clue. The example that he uses to illustrate the supposed need to keep guns out of the hands of "children, the mentally ill and criminals" is one where the death was directly due to the actions of someone who violated an existing a law that already should keep guns out of the hands of criminals. So, is he claiming that if another law were on the books, it would have kept Latoya Burnette from posessing the gun (doubtful, since she was already violating the law), or only that she could have been tried in a state court instead of Federal court (in which case it would not have prevented the death of the letter carrier)?
If he said that, his formulation is weak on several counts. First, the term "American freedom" is ambiguous because it could be taken to mean a freedom granted by the [US] government. The correct term, always, is "God-given freedom", [vestiges of which have not yet been infringed upon or eliminated by governments state and federal.] Second, the right in question is the right to keep [possess] and bear arms, not merely to own them. We have not yet arrived at the sorry pass of the Eurotrash and the Brits, where firearms may be "owned", but only if kept at the shooting club, etc. Last, it is never a good idea for any proponent of our God given right to keep and bear arms to conflate or in any other manner associate that sacred right with the right to hunt. All wild game is ferrrae naturae, the taking of which has been controlled by the state since Roman times. Very simply, so that even the very dim and very French Monsieur Kerry can understand the point, there is no Constitutionally protected right to take ring-necked pheasant, or any other wild game. As all Real Americans understand in their souls, the Second Amendment has nothing whatsoever to do with mulies, elk and white tails. Once again, LaPierre has shown his taste for the capillaries rather than the jugular.
A very interesting line of argument - while I haven't really studied 2nd amendment history, I certainly understand that the benefit of having armed citizens is to put a check on government power, and you have illuminated an excellent reason why hunting has nothing whatsoever to do with the 2nd...
I'll give you the bit about the right to hunt, but the rest of it is right on the money.
Yes, in the same sense that the benefit of oxygen is conducive to living, as the Framers knew well. A good and succint summary of their reasoning on the subject you mentioned is in Justice Story's Commentaries.
I'll give you the bit about the right to hunt, but the rest of it is right on the money.
I'll give you the bit about the right to hunt, but the rest of it is right on the money.
Molon Labe!
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