Posted on 01/08/2013 10:45:12 AM PST by Red Steel
Editors note: The following was sent to Montanas congressional delegation on behalf of the Montana Shooting Sports Association.
Because there is much discussion among gun owners of Montana about proposals by Sen. Diane Feinstein and others for Congress to enact various types of gun control, I though you would appreciate knowing what I hear from Montanans about this.
I speak to you as a person intimately familiar with firearms, with public policy about firearms, as a person accepted in state and federal courts as an expert on firearms, firearms safety and use of force, and as the president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, Montanas primary organization asserting the right to keep and bear arms, also affiliated or associated with the National Rifle Association, Gun Owners of America, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and the Second Amendment Foundation.
On behalf of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, I wish to express our unequivocal opposition to any ban on any class or type of firearms, any new registration requirements on any class or types of firearms, any restrictions on manufacture, sale or possession of ammunition feeding devices of any configuration or capacity, and any government intrusion into firearm transfers between private citizens. Any congressional actions in any of these areas would be an infringement upon the rights the citizens of Montana have reserved to themselves.
The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article II, Section 12 of the Montana Constitution these sections of these foundational documents are not government permission to keep firearms. They are statements whereby the people have reserved these rights to themselves specifically from government interference.
These statements do not create any rights, but simply recognize preexisting natural rights which are restricted from government interference. As you consider whatever gun control (actually people control) may be offered by Sen. Feinstein or others, I hope you will keep these facts clearly in mind.
Gun-free zones are a terrible failure of public policy. Virtually all mass shootings, including the one in Connecticut that has sparked the current wave of media hysteria, happen in places where public policy has incorrectly assured people that they are safe, but where the policy has actually created risk-free zones for madmen, and pools of defenseless victims conveniently offered up for slaughter by failed policy.
Former police officer Ron Avery says, The only way to check violence in progress, where the victim can neither hide nor flee, is by equal or greater force in a timely manner. If Congress feels compelled to do something in the wake of the Connecticut shooting, it should repeal the pretense of all federally-mandated or federally-inspired gun-free zones.
For any inside the Beltway who actually believe in the effectiveness of gun-free zones, I recommend that the White House, the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, the U.S. Supreme Court and all federal courthouses be declared gun-free zones, and that all armed guards and protective personnel in those places be removed. If gun-free zones are effective for our kids, theyre good enough for our servants.
Various gun bans, licensing or registration schemes, and/or bans or restrictions of ammunition feeding devices will fail. I wont bother you with discussion of the fact that any such restrictions will have no effect on criminals or madmen. I believe you already know that.
I do hope to inform you about how strongly the gun owners of Montana feel about their right to keep and bear arms. I have asked around among a considerable number of friends, acquaintances and contacts in Montana. I have not learned of anyone who would comply, for example, with a new federal law requiring them to register or surrender their semi-auto rifles to authorities.
Let me be very clear: Montanans will not comply with any new federal restrictions. The most any such restrictions would do would be to create a huge, new, armed, outlaw class of citizens. And I very much doubt that most Montana law enforcement personnel would cooperate in enforcing any such federal restrictions.
Clearly, the vast numbers of citizens who have bought new firearms in the past month, especially the hundreds of thousands of expensive semi-auto rifles, did not buy these new firearms simply so theyd have them available to surrender if Congress should pass a law demanding they do so.
Since Montana law enforcement personnel are unlikely to enforce any such restrictions, the effect of passage of such restrictions would ultimately be for federal officers to come to Montana to enforce them. Because most Montanans will simply not comply with any new federal restraints on a right they have reserved specifically from government interference, the obvious result would be armed conflict between Montanans and federal enforcers. (I offer this not as a threat or a challenge, but simply as an observation.)
I certainly hope you would not set Montana on the path to an armed conflict with federal enforcers by aiding or supporting passage of any new federal restrictions. That would not be in the best interest of your constituents.
Instead, if you feel compelled to pass some actually corrective legislation in response to the media hysteria over the Connecticut shooting, I highly recommend that you get rid of those dangerous and illusory gun free zones.
Gary Marbut, of Missoula, is the president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association.
I believe we are now on the same page.
Before congress rushes to ‘never let a crisis go to waste’, they need to understand that every county has a sheriff and sheriffs are sworn to defend the constitution and protect their citizens from the feds if it comes to that.
I’m not going to get into a lot of your “what ifs” here... But the answers to your questions are easy to answer.
Neither will freepers
This says it all.
In 1929 , the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953 ,
about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded
up and exterminated.
In 1911 , Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million
Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and
exterminated.
Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total
of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were
rounded up and exterminated.
China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million
political dissidents, unable to defend themselves , were rounded up and
exterminated.
Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, one hundred
thousand Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves , were rounded up and
exterminated.
Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, three hundred
thousand Christians , unable to defend themselves , were rounded up and
exterminated.
Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977 ,one million
educated people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and
exterminated.
Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century
because of gun control: 56 million.
Yes we are different. For example we have an all volunteer military. Not mandatory service, not conscription not required for culture advancement, etc.
Do you know many individualists under 30? Are they a majority? A plurality? A minority? Or are they an anomaly?
They may yet save us.
Ping
You won’t see me nully, but I’ll wave to you from a distance when you’re being ushered to a FEMA camp while you’re also waiting for the coming Revelation. You know most of this is nonsense talk.
I don’t think I’ll be allowed to live long enough to see the inside of a FEMA camp.
I’m also an agnostic, for whatever that’s worth.
All dressed up, destination unknown...
The author does touch the subject of every human being's 'natural right' to self-defense and the extension of this natural right.
Article - "These statements do not create any rights, but simply recognize preexisting natural rights "
If you mean "we" as in "you and I" then oh oh it is because we was smart enough to get out (all the way out) when the getting was GOOD!
I won’t comply either. I reserve the authority to defend and protect my life and those I love from any aggression or aggressor who means to intimdate me into complying with their demand or whoever intends on injuring or killing anyone.
I will not be disarmed and made venerable, that is “defenseless”.
It is my right and moral obligation, God given, to save myself, those I love and anyone near me from death.
I will use any means to overcome and overpower anyone or beast who would attempt to kill or maim.
You may have my guns after I run out of ammunition but, that ammunition will be sent downrange in your direction with accurate fire.
I have never nor do I have any thoughts of being a 1st aggressor and never harmed a man or thing who did not strike me first.
I abhor violence but, the only way prevent violence is the knowledge of all men that their first strike will be met with an even greater force to end their actions and that may very well result in great bodily injury to them or their death.
All men know this. The rational ones.
For the KuhRayZee and Demented, as well those who are evil, conscience has left them long ago as to what is right and what is wrong. For they will act on the stories they tell themselves and they are not to be trusted nor will they be allowed to prevail. The outcome for them is predictable. They will be ended or subdued and circumstances will dictate whatever the result is.
Leave me alone.
Well, we threw out the government those citizens chose to keep, so yes on GB.
Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia...
Those two governments don't exist anymore.
Commie China and Khmer Rouge Cambodia
Not much freedom for gun owners or anybody else in those two countries. We don't tolerate the other repressions routinely done in those countries, I don't know why anyone should expect we will roll over on the gun issues.
Do we really have some magical genetic protection from it ever happening here?
No we don't. And previous stands against tyranny doesn't provide magic protection today. That is why we have to be prepared to refresh the Tree of Liberty any time it is needed. We just need to provide it with some tyrants along with the patriots.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
- Ronald Reagan
Either the Book of Revelation is wrong, and even as an agnostic that bothers me*, or we are rendered irrelevant in the Final Battle.
That bothers me too.
*Yes, I know that makes absolutely no sense. It is what it is...
Most of us hard working folks cannot afford the time off work and the cost of the fight, but I have longed for someone with the means and temperament to be arrested for open carry and take it all the way to SCOTUS. No where in the 2nd does it say anything about concealed permits and other such nonsense and restrictions, but we have tolerated it in fear of the fight to SCOTUS not turning out our way. Actually now and with the next SCOTUS appointment that fear rings true.
Just like when Wyatt Earp and others posted their towns as no-gun zones, that was against the law but some people think he was justified.
Nully won’t be going anywhere. I’ll be at his side sending .308 downrange.
Neither will ours, at least in any recognizable form, if they go down that bloody road.
No we don't. And previous stands against tyranny doesn't provide magic protection today.
That is exactly my point.
Perhaps you should modify your first line in post #2 so that it reads: “they will try...”
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