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To: 45Auto
I just sent Mr. Kent the following email. We'll see if he replies

Thank you for your recent remarks in the Atlanta-Journal regarding second amendment rights. Now that a responsible government official and at least one court of appeals has acknowledged the right as "individual" rather than "collective", it may be possible for interested parties to agree on what constitutes "reasonable" gun controls. Perhaps the Fifth Circuit's remarks in Emerson about the need for gun controls to be narrowly construed and tailored to specific, individual circumstances provides a key.

I must confess I was baffled by your comment "Despite the opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court, at no time since 1939 has the individual right to keep and bear arms been abridged by wholesale government policy.", as that right most certainly has bee abridged (i.e., "infringed upon"). To cite only one example, until 1986 private citizens were allowed to buy and possess automatic weapons --- albeit under strict Government supervision and with an annual tax intended to discourage most people. In that year, that form of exercising the second amendment right was limited to those automatic weapons already lawfully possessed by civilians (that is, no new models can be possessed by civilians). It was that scheme of regulation that was "tested" by the Miller case and found, without benefit of plaintiffs making an appearance or even submitting a brief, to be Constitutional.

Now, if the change in the law in 1986 wasn't an abridgement or infringement of second amendment rights, then I'm not sure I know what would be. Would you be so kind as to explain?

9 posted on 05/13/2002 5:45:26 PM PDT by sailor4321
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To: sailor4321
Also, get rid of all the collected information that is usable by some future anti-gun lunatic factions. There is too much evidence being collected on the wrong people and not enough on the right ones.
10 posted on 05/13/2002 6:00:11 PM PDT by Surrounded_too
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