You got it right on Heinz. Thank goodness they did not use guns this time to hijack the planes.
Here is something a friend of mine who is asst DA where I live wrote a few years ago.
A PESKY THING, OUR RIGHT TO OWN ALL KINDS OF GUNS
I AM A NATIONAL Rifle Association member. Let’s not get into name-calling or finger pointing. I won’t call you a “liberal pinko Commie” if you won’t call me a “blood-lust Bambi murderer.” Let’s discuss the issue rationally and logically.
You want to ban all assault weapons. How would you define this term? Remember Grandpa’s bolt-action Springfield he brought back from World War I? It was specifically designed for the miltary as an “assault weapon.”
“No, no,” you exclaim, “I only mean semi-automatic weapons.” Well, remember dad’s Colt semi-auto .45 pistol he brought back from Korea and keeps in his dresser drawer for protection? It was specifically designed for the military as an assault weapon. And remember, too, that every major semi-auto sporting rifle design has evolved, except for appearance, from arms originally designed for the military.
Pesky things, definitions.
“We have to protect our children”, you say, I agree. I have two small children of my own. Do you honestly think that manic in Stockton, Calif., could not have murdered just as many children with a pump shotgun or a Molotov cocktail or a Buick? Of course he could have.
But I’ve heard no outcries from you to ban automobiles. Do you realize there were 450,000 injuries and 45,000 deaths in the United States from automobile accidents last year? At least a quarter of these were children. Wait. Maybe instead of a complete ban on these killing machines (cars), let’s mandate that they all must have devices limiting their speeds to 20 miles per hour. Let’s not forget; if we ban automobiles (and boats and personal aircraft), we completely stop forever the drug problem – period. It’s hard to imagine a drug pusher carrying a thousand pounds of marijuana or 150 pounds of cocaine around on his back. “no,” I hear you wail. “You can’t take my car.”
Pesky things, these personal freedoms.
Also, we have to deal with school buses. Last year over 20 children burned to death in a school bus in Kentucky. Ban these buses. Remember, we don’t have to have school buses. We could build enough schools so that every child in America is within walking or biking distance. Or we could construct injury-proof buses looking like sherman tanks and costing $1.5 million each.
“No more school taxes. I can’t afford it and won’t stand for it, “you say.
Pesky things, these personal freedoms.
While we’re banning, let’s ban cigarettes. They stink, they cause cancer and every year hundreds of children are burned to death by negligent parents smoking in bed.
“Please,” I hear you whimper, “not my Salems.”
Pesky things, these personal freedoms.
I have made all these very serious points in a humorous way. All these points are valid. Our society is full of instruments that can cause injury and death if misused. I, too, have nightmares about my children being injured by some nut. But most often these nightmares are about drunk drivers or negligent bus drivers, not of me in school yards with a gun.
There presently are thousands of gun laws in the United States. To date there has never, ever been a valid study showing they have deterred crime one iota. We have had a ban on machine guns since the 1930’s (unless you get a very special permit from the government). Do you think this has deterred the Mafia soldiers or drug smugglers from locating, purchasing and using them? Of course not.
Plain and simple, such laws do not work. A criminal will not hesitate. Do you see many criminals worried that they have no license to import cocaine? Do you honestly think a cocaine smuggler making millions of dollars a year will worry about a license on his semi-auto weapon? The only people to be deprived would be you and I, honest citizens who may want to hunt or protect our homes with a semi-automatic gun. (And later, when this ban didn/t work, as it surely wouldn’t, you would be back wanting to ban bolt-action, pump- and single-shot guns.)
Pastor Martin Niemoller made the following statement at the time of his arrest by the Gestapo in 1937, which sums up the reason I am writing this letter.
“In Germany, they came first for the communists, I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t communist. Then, they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then, they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then, they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
Before I close, I should point out one more difference of opinion the anti-gun crowd and I have. The Constitution of the United States says, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The anti-gun people and I differ on the interpretation to be placed on this constitutional right. But, you have to admit; there is an argument at least to be made by me that I have a constitutional right to own my semi-automatic .22-caliber rifle. Search as I can, I find no such constitutional argument protecting automobiles, cigarettes or school buses.
Pesky things, these constitutional rights.
Monty |
