64 lines
3.3 KiB
Plaintext
64 lines
3.3 KiB
Plaintext
* Keep The Issue Clear!
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Bernard Levine, Box 2404, Eugene OR 97402
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Not copyrighted -- please circulate
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Most of the arguments for and against gun bans address such
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marginal issues as the protection of hunting and target shooting
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versus the prevention of crime. They avoid the central issue,
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which is the protection of liberty against the inroads of
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tyranny. In fact the Constitution is equally silent on sport
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shooting and on crime prevention. The Constitution's Second
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Amendment guarantees our right to keep and bear arms strictly as
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the means of last resort by which a free people can and ought to
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resist tyranny, whether the threat of tyranny be foreign or
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domestic, military conquest or political subversion.
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Certainly guns are dangerous. So are cars. Certainly guns, like
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cars, should be kept from the hands of the irresponsible and the
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deranged. Nonetheless guns, like cars, are an essential
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ingredient of our freedom. When the Bill of Rights states, "the
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right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
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infringed", it does not mention "sporting" arms or any chimerical
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"right" to hunt. If you are "pro-gun" but think that hunting and
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target shooting are the real issues, then you, like President
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Bush, have naively surrendered the moral high ground to the foes
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of liberty in a pusillanimous and futile attempt to appease them.
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Whatever high-sounding or devious excuses they might offer, gun
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ban advocates really want to support tyranny. This is true of the
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press and broadcast moguls, who profit most from a frightened,
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passive, helpless audience. It is true of the radical
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legislators, who rightly view an armed public as the ultimate
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deterrent to their revolutionary agenda of redistributive "social
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justice". It is most especially true of police chiefs and senior
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police officials, the very men who always assume absolute power
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in the police-states that spring up whenever radical revolutions
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succeed.
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The news publishers, the radical legislators, and the police
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bureaucrats are natural allies in promoting gun bans. The advance
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of the states monopoly on power (which is what tyranny means)
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enhances their individual influence, strengthens the power of
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their organizations, and advances their shared dogma, that an
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"enlightened" police-state (namely one with them in charge) is
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more "just" to the "poor and downtrodden" than is a government
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based on individual liberty.
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By themselves the publishers, the legislators, and the police
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chiefs could not subvert the Constitution and enact gun bans.
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Therefore they drum up the support of the most readily swayed
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part of the public, all the tremulous dewy-eyed naifs who are
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ignorant of history and mystified by our political and economic
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system. These frightened followers are unable to grasp the nature
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of cause and effect, so the media have taught them that guns
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cause crime. They are unable to tell right from wrong, so they
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have been led to believe that self-defense is an "injustice to
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the poor". They cannot distinguish statesmanship from psychosis,
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so they glorify violent criminals as "free spirits" and the
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"shock troops of the movement". These innocents form a powerful
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team with the would-be tyrants and their journalistic apologists,
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for without an ignorant, foolish and self-destructive public that
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is intoxicated by wishful thinking and seduced by government
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programs (remember Weimar Germany?) there can be no tyranny --
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and no tyrannical gun bans.
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