'Nuts' or not, e-mailers are sticking to their guns

Chicago Sun Times ^ | February 19, 2003 | Dale Bowman

[SJackson]

'Nuts' or not, e-mailers are sticking to their guns

February 19, 2003

The first salvo will come from John Farmer , a friend from Crete:

"I by no means am a gun nut, although I do own more than 20, three of which are handguns. You failed to mention in your anti-gun, 'under the guise of I am for hunting guns' article, that Illinois has a handgun hunting season. I do participate in this opportunity, successfully I might add, with a .44 magnum and by no means consider myself a 'nut.' Hunting nut ... guilty as charged. I also own a Browning Challenger .22 auto pistol that I squirrel and rabbit hunt with.

"I do not see any use for assault weapons either, but I do have a couple prize-possession Browning auto loaders, 30-06 and 7mm magnum, that would be outlawed should some of the anti-gun [Democratic] bills be passed. Specifically, the hidden clauses in the Brady Bill.

"I am a very serious hunter [108 whitetails harvested] and gun owner and am quite offended to be portrayed in a bad light. As a responsible handgun owner, I take exception.''

Farmer's was one of hundreds of responses to Sunday's column, "Hunters need to separate themselves from gun nuts.''

Most were regurgitations of National Rifle Association propaganda. Exactly the stuff that puts hunters in the lunatic fringe, where we can be marginalized and ostracized. There's a reason more than 90 percent of hunters don't belong to the NRA: It doesn't represent our views.

As Dan Grabon of Plainfield put it: "I love to pheasant hunt and am fond of shotgun hunting. But we need better gun laws in this country, and I do not feel threatened by any of those proposed 'new' laws you mentioned. I showed my fellow co-worker your article, and he was not happy. An argument followed. He is a proclaimed 'gun nut,' and I am not. And your article brought out the difference between us.''

David Chidley wrote: "First, it saddens me to see one in your position use a provocative and divisive term such as 'gun nuts.' Contrary to your insinuation, gun nuts per se are harmless. It is the nuts that own guns about whom we should all be concerned.''

A Chicagoan who goes by Ed Iphish and e-mails occasionally sent this: "The mayor doesn't know the difference between assault weapons and semiautomatic shotguns. I doubt the governor would be able to tell the difference either. Handguns have many hunting applications in addition to being personal defense weapons. Just because you have no use for one doesn't mean I don't.

"Gun fingerprinting, background checks and waiting periods are ineffective if our legal system doesn't put firearm offenders behind bars. Spend my money on building jails. The mayor and the governor can jump up and down and stomp their feet all they want ... until they put criminals in jail, any other proposed gun restrictions are political fodder.

"Your wishy-washy commentary asking us to separate ourselves from 'gun nuts' is just more fuel on the burning desire of the outdoor-ignorant to ban all firearms in the city.''

An e-mail from John Brazas of Homewood gives an answer:

"First and foremost, the NRA is not the voice of gun owners. It is the voice of gun manufacturers. For the National Rifle Association to appoint and anoint itself as the unquestionable 'Voice of All Gun Owners Everywhere' is like Phillip Morris appointing itself as the spokesmen for lung cancer.''

Terry D. Cornell Jr. of the south suburbs, who lost a family member to a gun crime, gets the final word:

"I too feel that there needs to be some type of gun control. Crime is out of hand; guns are used in most crimes. But I think the proposed legislation isn't going to work. Did prohibition work? No. Do the drug laws? No. No matter how tough the laws are, does it stop the importation of illegal drugs? No. I know that I sound like a pessimist, and maybe even worse, a gun nut. But I'm not.''

Cornell disagreed with much of Mayor Daley's proposed legislation.

"I was born around guns,'' he wrote. "I got my first gun when I was 9, a .410 shotgun. [I got 'promoted.' Instead of flushing out the birds, I finally got to shoot them.] I was taught how to handle guns and respect them. I understand the deadly effects and consequences guns have when used illegally and/or improperly.

"I think that something needs to be done. I just don't have the answer. I know that it may sound like a cop-out, but it isn't. I don't think that total ban is going to help. I hope that someday this problem can be solved, as it will spare some family the grief that my family has suffered.''

HALL OF FAME: Henry Bark-hausen, Bill Cullerton Sr. and former Gov. Jim Edgar will be the second class inducted into the Illinois Outdoor Hall of Fame on Friday at Drury Lane in Oakbrook Terrace.

SHOWTIME: North American Whitetail and Illinois Game & Fish will host the unveiling of Jerry Bryant's 36-point Fulton County buck at the Illinois Deer & Turkey Classic this Friday through Sunday at Bloomington's Interstate Center. Information is available at (800) 324-3337 or www.deerinfo.com.

*Alpinist Ed Viestuers and Mark Burnett, creator of "Eco Challenge'' and "Survivor,'' headline the International Adventure Travel and Outdoor Show this Friday through Sunday at Navy Pier. Go to www.adventuretravelshow.com.

*The Spring Fever Outdoor Show is at the Porter County (Ind.) Fairgrounds Expo Center on Saturday and next Sunday. Call (800) 283-8687.

Dale Bowman may be reached at outdoordb@aol.com. "Bowman's Outdoor Line'' is heard on "Outdoors with Mike Norris'' (3-4 p.m. Thursdays, 1280-AM).

[SJackson]

Illinois and Second Ammendment ping list. If you'd like to be added to or removed from either, please FRMail me. =====================================================

Original article: Hunters need to separate themselves from gun nuts

[sauropod]

I remember the original article.

Time to put togther a response to this bozo.

[LS]

I read some of the comments by your e-mailers on guns. Many are well-intentioned, but simply constitutionally wrong. The Founders made the 2nd Amendment the SECOND amendment because it virtually guaranteed all the others. I have done considerable research---and not of the bogus Michael Bellisiles variety!---on the origins of guns and the term "well-regulated militia," and concluded that for several reasons, restrictions on guns should be at an absolute minimum, by either state or federal authorities. This is not, and never has been, about hunting! The history of arms ownership in England and the colonies shows, for example:

1) the term "militia" was never, ever, used to describe a government-dominated/originated body, but was always comprised of free men with arms who could serve as both a defense of the nation against outsiders and as a defense against an oppressive, tyrannical goverment at home. This is the evolution of the term from England, where arms ownership (particularly bows) was required and where training in arms was required. In American colonial times, if you read the early documents, it is abundantly clear that the "right to bear arms" was intended, not for government soldiers, but for citizens to provide for the "common defense" including rebellion against tyrannical colonial/state governments. You may disagree with the rationale behind such laws---but that never seems to be the issue, especially in the courts, where it is disguised under misuse of the term "well-regulated militia." I repeat: nothing in English, early colonial, or Revolutionary era history suggests that this was ever intended to be a goverment-controlled "national guard," but a counterbalance to existing state and/or national regular armies.

2) The term "bear arms" is significant. It contains its own concept of "gun regulation," to wit, it was assumed by the colonial lawmakers, and the drafters of the Constitution that an individual should own whatever he could "bear." This did not include cannon, although they did not specifically prohibit private ownership of cannons. I think you might make a case that individuals should not have the right to own any weapon that requires more than one person to carry or fire. That is as far as I think you can take any "gun regulation." It might be Constitutional, for example, to say that individuals cannot own 50-caliber machine guns that require a two-man team to carry and operate. But an Oozi? I don't think you have a constitutional case there. Contrary to "anti-gun nut" (incredible) claims, the term "bear arms" does not mean simply "carry," but the history of the term implies "carry and use." So that is another Constitutional barrier to anyone wanting to impose most gun regulations.

3) The term "shall not be infringed" is non-specific, which is bad news to regulators. It means that not only can the U.S. Congress not "make no law," but NO STATE or CITY (Constitutionally speaking) can either.

4) The way we got into this morass of stupidly-designed gun laws stems from the Great Deperssion, in which the USSC totally skirted the issue of the phrase "well-regulated militia" by implying that it meant "national guard." Recently, this ruling has been challenged, halfway successfully in Texas, in the Emerson case, where the court upheld everything I said, then still concluded that "some" gun regulations are legitimate. I do not see legally how that can possibly stand, as other cases, I am confident, will show.

Now, we live in a democratic Republic. If you (not you personally!) want to change this or any other part of the Constitution, feel free, and let's have a debate over the specific change. But as far as I can tell from all the historical context I'ves seen about the 2nd Amendment, ANY infringement by ANY state or locality or even the federal government on the "right to bear arms" (save the caveat I gave you about "bearing") is wrong and unconstitutional, and is a back-door sneak attack to avoid dealing with the reality of the Constitution itself. It isn't about hunting.

(BTW, I was raised around guns, but never owned one until a few years ago, when I bought a shotgun and got some training.) Larry Schweikart Professor of History University of Dayton

[LS]

Saur . . . sorry, I forgot to put at the top of the post, "This was the e-mail I sent to this guy." This isn't meant to you, obviously.

[Gordian Blade]

That's "Uzi", not "Oozi".

[Area51]

Anyone have the quote from Sigmond Freud that went something like 'those that fear guns have some repressed sexual inequity...'?

[jjm2111]

Here's my letter to this maroon:

Dear Mr. Bowman:

When my father was a child growing up in Brooklyn in the fifties, many high schools had marksmanship teams and school children would bring their rifles (cased, of course) on the subway. A twelve year old could order a .45 semi-automic handgun through the mail. There were no school shootings. Gun control is nothing more than the deluded fantasies of overly emotional people who don't know the stock from the muzzle.

Guns are used in a minority of crime and the ever undefinable "assault weapon" is almost never used in a crime. Both your demonization of NRA members as a "lunatic fringe" and your desire to take away from other people by force objects which you could care less about is immature and foolish.

Grow up.

Without respect,

My real name.

[Redbob]

I too lost a family member to a "gun crime," but it has given me a little different perspective than the whiners quoted in that story:
If my brother-in-law had had a gun handy, he and three others in his office might be alive today.
As it is, the drug-addict who put them all face-down and executed them, after getting all the money they had, is eligible for parole in just another couple years.

I can wait.

[junta]

My guess is that this liberal loser had a tiff with a RKBA activist and he had to get in a jibe at "gun nuts." It seems a common tactic amongst the effete lefties to take offense when their little childhood fantasies are taken away and in the end up sounding like little soft facists crying for control.

[George W. Bush]

bump for Second Amendment defenders

[LS]

uuuuupps. You are right!

[Barnacle]

I wish he printed mine.

[jjm2111]

Heheheh.....

[Sloth]

"The mayor doesn't know the difference between assault weapons and semiautomatic shotguns."

Just today on CNN Radio news during one of Rush's program breaks, the reporter said that the recommended gun for cockpit use by pilots under the new guidelines is a "40 millimeter" pistol. Gosh, 40 mm... they really DO mean business!

[facedown]

First and foremost, the NRA is not the voice of gun owners. It is the voice of gun manufacturers.

This old saw is sooooooo worn out. The manufacturers have their own lobbying group. The NRA may not be as gung-ho as I would like but they certainly are looking out for gun owners.

[SJackson]

This old saw is sooooooo worn out. The manufacturers have their own lobbying group. The NRA may not be as gung-ho as I would like but they certainly are looking out for gun owners

I agree. Despite their occasional shortcomings (usually, political practicality) I encourage everyone to join the NRA.

The interests of gun manufacturers do not coincide with the interests of gun owners, and are totally irrelevant when it comes to the 2nd amendment.

[facedown]