From: owner-utah-firearms-digest@lists.xmission.com (utah-firearms-digest) To: utah-firearms-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: utah-firearms-digest V2 #162 Reply-To: utah-firearms-digest Sender: owner-utah-firearms-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-utah-firearms-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk utah-firearms-digest Friday, October 15 1999 Volume 02 : Number 162 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 14:45:46 -0600 From: charles hardy Subject: Re: GOUtah! Opposes Teachers as Cops Proposal by USSC Karl, Teachers who feel as you do desperatly need to heard by the legislature. Please contact your State rep or Senator (if they are pro-gun) and make arrangments to testify at some of the hearings on gun bills and school safety that are sure to come up this next session. If your rep or senator are not pro gun and helpful, and you're at all unsure of which other members of hte legislature to contact, please let me know and I'll put you in touch with a couple good members. Also, you most certainly know other teachers who feel similarly to the way you do. They too need to be encouraged to speak out--to let the legislature, the press, and the populace know that on the gun issue, the PTA and UEA do not represent the views of all teachers. Charles. On Mon, 11 Oct 1999 20:44:31 -0600 Karl Peterson writes: > While I would not like to be a sworn peace officer with powers of > arrest, I > would like to be able to carry a concealed weapon on campus if I > have a > Concealed Carry Permit. I would even welcome an opportunity to get > high > level training in the use of the weapon from professional police > trainers. I > would especially love it if the State would admit they they cannot > afford to > hire enough police officers to put one in every school, so they > offer to pay > teachers to get the training and furnish them with an appropriate > weapon to > keep locked in a combo box in a locked drawer of their desk and get > regular > supervised paid practice in its' use at a commercial or police > range. I > could get to it in my drawer in an emergency a lot faster than the > average > Police response time, and my students would be unable to get to it. > > As it stands right now, I believe that I would be in violation of my > contract > and subject to immediate dismissal if I carried a concealed weapon > to school > even if I had a Permit. The only armed individual at my school that > I am > aware of is a single in-school police officer, and he is not > on-campus all > the time. To know if he is there all you would have to do is check > his > clearly marked parking space... > > I was in a real "weapon in the school" lockdown last year. We spent > almost an > hour and a half in lock down with absolutely no information for the > first > hour. Turned out that it was a reported knife in the subdivision > next to the > school. I had a lot of time to think and stress about how I would > defend > myself and my students if an armed intruder came through my locked > door. The > answer I came up with it that I would be unable to do anything > except throw > things or myself at him. This year my door has a window in it so > that he > wouldn't even have to break down the door to get in, just break or > shoot out > the glass and reach in to open the handle. > > Given the well documented fact that police officers have no > statutory duty to > protect anyone from anything. Given that I am willing to receive > training so > that I can protect myself and my students from an armed intruder who > enters > our "gun free zone", I would hope that you would support me and > lobby for me > to be able to Carry at school with the proper permits. > > I am an NRA Life Member and an NRA Certified Instructor in all Rifle > and > Shotgun disciplines. I have worked as a Rangemaster and have > trained > literally over a thousand young people how to shoot with accuracy, > precision > and safety. I am a nine bar Sharpshooter with rifle and a > Sharpshooter with > Shotgun. I own a pistol, but it is a bit too big for concealed > carry. On a > teachers salary, a concealable weapon with laser sights which I > would want to > have is just too expensive. > > Thank you for your time and consideration. > > > > - > ================================================================== Charles C. Hardy ___________________________________________________________________ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj. - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Oct 99 11:36:00 -0700 From: scott.bergeson@ucs.org (SCOTT BERGESON) Subject: FW: Kmart dumps Rosie (?) - ----- To: lputah@qsicorp.com Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 13:26:32 -0600 Subject: FW: Kmart dumps Rosie (?) From: "Jim Dexter" Let's hope this is true. - ------------------------------------------- Subject: Kmart dumps Rosie Has anyone else seen or heard about this? - --------------------------------------------------------- I just copied this from a site I visit. It's been brewing for a couple days and now the guy evidentially found the article and typed it for posting there. He says it's from his local paper. I have no reason to doubt him. He lives in NY. _________________________________________ First, this is rather lengthy. Second, I am copying the article out of the local paper. Sorry for any typo's. Third, this article was written by Dave Henderson on published on Wed 9/29. Rosie O'Donnell - talk show host, comedienne and actress - apparently has quite a national following. Known alternately as the "Queen of Nice3" by the media in reference to her soft-subject talk show and "Rosie O'Doughnuts" by Don Imus' irreverent crew in reference to hew heftiness, O'Donnell grabbed national headlines last spring when she shouted down guest Tom Selleck when he defended his rights as a gun owner on her talk show. The incident occurred shortly after the Columbine and Conyers gun tragedies. Using her talk show seat as a podium, Rosie the next day essentially told the TV audience that it was "tough" if hunters and shooters would miss their guns and that "...only the military and police should have guns." Rosie is certainly entitled to her opinions, and is entitled to express them in her national TV forum. That's what KMart, for which Rosie was a paid spokesperson, said in a statement shortly thereafter. O'Donnell, not coincidentally, immediately issued a statement that Kmart was OK because it sold legal guns and ammo to hunters and shooters who used it lawfully - ignoring the fact that she'd attacked those very people previously. Well, according to a published report, the threatened boycott did come to pass and - with its margins on hunting items cut deeply entering hunting season - Kmart has DISMISSED O'Donell as a spokesperson. The move apparently has triggered an even bigger response as Wal'Mart, the nation's leading retailer, has reacted to the move by making arrangements with firearms training org's to support and provide meeting room space for training sessions nationwide. Kmart and Wal-Mart, incidentally, are the nations leading retailers of sporting arms and ammo. The adage "when you really want their attention, hit them in the wallet" certainly proved itself in this case. End - --------------------------------------------- I am so glad to hear this. I hope it's true. If this can be substantiated, then I think we should contact K-Mart and Wal-Mart to give them applause. - -------------------------------------------------------- | Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners | | P.O. Box 14014, Lansing, MI 48901. Membership $15/yr. | | http://www.mcrgo.org/ | - -------------------------------------------------------- - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Oct 99 10:11:00 -0700 From: scott.bergeson@ucs.org (SCOTT BERGESON) Subject: FW: Gun Makers: An Open Letter - ----- To: lputah@qsicorp.com Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 10:21:55 -0600 Subject: FW: Gun Makers: An Open Letter From: "Jim Dexter" The author is Nancy Lord's husband. - ----------------------------------------------- Attention Gun Manufacturers: After reading a recent AP wire story regarding discussions many of you have been having with cites about firearms lawsuits, I believe it's time we give you a dose of reality, and some helpful advice. First of all, it sounds like too many of you have been listening to your lawyers. If this is the case, they should be fired -- and use some of your products to escort them to the door. As a second amendment activist who works in the legal business, I can tell you that many of these lawyers are only pro-second amendment as long as the check clears. After that, part of their political contributions goes to organizations that are leading the fight to put you out of business. Of course, many of you are saying, "It's easier to settle out of court than to deal with all the legal cost involved." This only begs the question, "Then why pay the lawyers in the first place?" If you really are convinced that out-of-court settlements are the answer, then go talk to the tobacco companies. Their lawyers told them the same thing. So after settling out-of-court (for a king's ransom) to the states, they found themselves getting blind-sided by the mother of all suits -- from the federal government. There are those of us who have given our lives, fortunes, and sacred honor just to keep you folks in business. Now we see what amounts to nothing less than a "sell-out" to the new religion of political correctness. Sorry to sound too harsh about the whole thing, but if you were in my home when I first read the story, you would know how much I've toned down my language. But this isn't just a gripe letter. I'm willing to offer whatever help I can. Unlike the tobacco companies, I recall seeing your products (and the right to own them) specifically mentioned in the Constitution. It was somewhere around the phrase, "shall not be infringed". It's as much a guaranteed right as it is for you to have lawyers (bet your lawyer didn't tell you that). Many of you will reply that you are not a political organization, but a business -- whose mission is to maximize and protect profits. Fine. Maybe it's time for you folks to start acting like a political organization. But first, take a look at those lawsuits -- without the lawyers around. What you will find glaring out at you is that these municipal leaders hell bent on their own agenda are attempting to sue you for things that a certain federal agency is supposed to be responsible for. Frankly, I can't find a Constitutional justification for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to exist. But it seems you're getting sued for what falls under their (apparent) jurisdiction. Why not simply counter-sue the BATF? The lawsuits against you have no merit. You are NOT responsible for the distribution of firearms to the civilian market. The firearm enterprise in this country is almost completely regulated by the BATF -- and you know this. If I were you, I would tell those cities to take those lawsuits and shove 'em, and get ready for a Supreme Court battle. But here are some other things you can do that will make these cities back off: 1) Instead of ending sales to the civilian market, try a prohibition on any sales to the government sector until the lawsuits are dropped. After all, these types have proven for centuries that they are most irresponsible people when it comes to firearms. 2) Instead of forking out mega-bucks for legal fees, try donating some of that liquid cash to organizations that are trying to stop this current regime. 3) If you can't find it in your hearts to sell firearms to the civilian market, how about selling the blueprints? I'm sure that will help you meet your bottom line. 4) Only hire lawyers who are pro-second amendment AND who own firearms. If you could get away with it, I'd say, "Only hire lawyers who accept guns and ammunition as payment for their services." That would give them a motivation. 5) Take out ads detailing the responsibilities of the BATF, then ask the question, "Aren't the wrong people being sued?" When I see gun manufacturers making "deals" with the powers that be, I think of the signs that I've seen in zoos across the country that read, "Don't Feed the Animals." Please understand that your enemies will not stop until you are out of business. It also reminds many second amendment activists of the Roman phrase, "Et Tu, Brute." If gun safety is your concern, consider this: When many of you stop selling to the civilian market, guns -- like hard drugs -- will fall under the "supply vs. demand" concept. Thus, I predict a growing black market for guns, and worse -- people who will resort to making their own type of high-powered weaponry. This will become a danger to even the person who's making the weapon and the people around them. Would you like this on your conscience, or will your lawyers tell you that it's not your concern? For too long, many of us have compromised our rights away. We have found for too long, that by giving a little ground, the adversary would lay off. But that lay off has been proving to be only short-lived. This country was built when some people drew the line when it came to the British confiscating firearms from the people. There are people who would love to do this today. What they can't get through any legislature, they are trying to get thorough the courts. One federal judge had thrown out a lawsuit that he called "baseless" -- and something that should be decided by the legislature -- not the courts. This proves that you can win the legal argument. Please do not tarnish the blood of these brave men -- men who founded this great nation. There are millions of people in this country who are a just a phone call away for any assistance you may need to stay in business. Don't throw away everything this country stands for just for the sake of "the bottom line" Take the legal high road. Don't hide. Don't blink in the face of adversity. Stand your ground like the men at Lexington and Concord. You will find many other faces standing with you. Sincerely, J.J. Johnson - citizen@mindspring.com - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 22:53:40 -0600 From: charles hardy Subject: Fw: Oct. 12 column -- gun lawsuit thrown out - ---------------- Charles Hardy - --------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Vin_Suprynowicz@lvrj.com (Vin Suprynowicz) To: vinsends@ezlink.com Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 18:45:47 -0700 Subject: Oct. 12 column -- gun lawsuit thrown out Message-ID: FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED OCT. 12, 1999 THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz Anti-gun lawsuit thrown out Court-watchers were beginning to wonder who was next. First the attorneys general of most of the states found success in their efforts to extort billions of dollars from the tobacco industry, hauling cigarette manufacturers into court to demand payment for the "health care costs" of sickened cigarette smokers. (In the real world, of course, cigarette smokers tend to die younger and thus run up (start ital)lower(end ital) lifetime health care costs; states have no obligation to pay their health care costs in the first place; and states have proceeded to use the resultant booty for nearly everything (start ital)but(end ital) the health care of sick smokers.) Then a number of cities, most prominently Chicago and New Orleans, decided they might be able to extort even more funds by suing handgun manufacturers, contending the gun makers were responsible for the ambulance and emergency room bills of young drug dealers who shoot each other or get shot by cops while in the commission of various crimes. The nation waited with bated breath. How long could it be before someone figured out how much money awaited the first jurisdiction to stumble on the exigency of suing GM or Toyota for all the costs resulting from automobile accidents? From the offices of the tort lawyers, the sound of pencils being sharpened could be heard late into the night. Fortunately, at least in one jurisdiction, common sense has now prevailed. In what The Associated Press is calling the first dismissal of such a case, Hamilton County (Ohio) Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman last week threw out Cincinnati's lawsuit against 14 firearms manufacturers, ruling the city's claims were vague and unsupported by legal precedent. The city intends to appeal the decision within a few days, said Stanley M. Chesley, attorney for the city. But Judge Ruehlman didn't beat about the bush. He threw out the lawsuit without even allowing the city to proceed with "discovery" -- using blanket subpoenas to beat the bushes for documents, hoping to find in the files of Taurus or Smith & Wesson or Beretta a smoking, "Let's hope this doesn't get out" memo. The city's suit demanded reimbursement for the costs of providing police, emergency, court and prison services in connection with shootings in the city -- not only homicides, but also accidents and suicides. Suicides? Join the line, all you pharmaceutical, bathtub, and rope manufacturers. But Judge Ruehlman found only the Legislature, not the courts, has authority to regulate product design and marketing. He also rejected Cincinnati's allegations of design defects and failure to warn users of possible risks from the use of guns so well-designed that even police forces carry them. "There can be liability for failure to warn only if the risk is not open and obvious or a matter of common knowledge," Judge Ruehlman wrote in his five-page ruling. "The risks associated with the use of a firearm," on the other hand, "are open and obvious and matters of common knowledge." Without even mentioning that Americans have a constitutional right to keep and bear them -- precisely the right the plaintiffs hope to finesse out of existence with this indirect attack. "It very clearly points out the weaknesses in the other cities' suits," was the immediate response of Jim Dorr, a Chicago lawyer who represents handgun manufacturers Sturm, Ruger & Co. Inc. of Southport, Conn., and Smith & Wesson Corp. of Springfield, Mass. But the ruling may have come too late for civilians wishing to purchase new handguns manufactured by Colt's Manufacturing Co., one of the defendants. Just as those who dreamed up this strategy had hoped, Colt -- a firm which has done better with military rifle contracts in recent decades than with its vintage line of handguns, and which now finds itself in the hands of a foreign national with no love of civilian gun ownership -- announced just before Judge Ruehlman's action that it will suspend or cease sales to the civilian market. The firearms manufacturers would have done better to adopt the advice of net correspondent Jon Roland, who on Oct. 4 advised, in part: 1) Immediately cease all sales or product deliveries to the police departments of the cities filing suit, and threaten to cease sales or deliveries to any dealers who sell to them. 2) Advise plaintiffs that if all lawsuits are not withdrawn within 10 days, all involved manufacturers will cease sales or product deliveries to law enforcement and military organizations in the United States. Only civilians will be allowed to purchase their products. 3) If the suits cause costs to increase till it becomes prohibitive to manufacture for the civilian market, immediately release all designs to the public domain, publishing them on the Internet, and begin training civilians to manufacture their own firearms and ammunition. Good plan. We've taken this lying down, long enough. Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. His new book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at 1-800-244-2224, or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html. *** Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com "The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it." -- John Hay, 1872 "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken * * * - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ------ If you have subscribed to vinsends@ezlink.com and you wish to unsubscribe, send a message to vinsends-request@ezlink.com, from your OLD address, including the word "unsubscribe" (with no quotation marks) in the "Subject" line. To subscribe, send a message to vinsends-request@ezlink.com, from your NEW address, including the word "subscribe" (with no quotation marks) in the "Subject" line. All I ask of electronic subscribers is that they not RE-forward my columns until on or after the embargo date which appears at the top of each, and that (should they then choose to do so) they copy the columns in their entirety, preserving the original attribution. The Vinsends list is maintained by Alan Wendt in Colorado, who may be reached directly at alan@ezlink.com. The web sites for the Suprynowicz column are at http://www.infomagic.com/liberty/vinyard.htm, and http://www.nguworld.com/vindex. The Vinyard is maintained by Michael Voth in Flagstaff, who may be reached directly at mvoth@infomagic.com. ___________________________________________________________________ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj. - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 23:00:46 -0600 From: charles hardy Subject: Fw: Oct. 10 column -- "free market" in the skies? - ---------------- Charles Hardy - --------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Vin_Suprynowicz@lvrj.com (Vin Suprynowicz) To: vinsends@ezlink.com Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 18:38:28 -0700 Subject: Oct. 10 column -- "free market" in the skies? Message-ID: FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED OCT. 10, 1999 THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz Let's launch an 'all-armed, all-smoking' airline A number of readers wrote in response to my column of Oct. 3, about bored functionaries "randomly" rooting through my laundry and personal effects even after my bags have cleared our now-standard metal detectors and X-ray machines. Many noted that private airlines have a right of private contract, which should allow them to set any such requirements they please, since we passengers always have the right to patronize another airline. I'm familiar with the argument for freedom of voluntary contract. In this case, it's purest steer manure. Suppose I raised $100 million and proposed to start AirGanja, "America's only all-armed, all-smoking airline"? I'd beef up my on-board air conditioning so I could advertise that our air quality is better than our competitors' even if the passengers on either side of you choose to chain-smoke cigars. My "flight attendants" would hand out free marijuana in First Class once airborne, and politely offer each boarding passenger a metal magazine (or revolver speed-loader) full or any caliber ammo they choose, urging them to reload their weapons for the duration of the flight with my special color-coded frangible rounds, designed to blow the head off any hijacker without penetrating our pressure cabins. (Needless to say, "controlled" drugs could not be used until we're airborne, at which point we're out of the jurisdiction of any local prohibitionist deviants -- the precedent already having been set by the fact that no airline today will refuse to sell you a cocktail while they're passing over the dry counties of Texas or Tennessee.) Of course, I'd charge a 15 percent premium for these improved services. Either I'd grow rich -- forcing my competitors to start offering some of the same options and services -- or, if my idea proved unpopular with the paying public, I'd go bankrupt. That would be a free market in air travel, and you would indeed remain free to choose a "non-smoking, no guns," strip-search airline (if that somehow makes you feel safer) instead of mine. Chance the FAA would allow me to launch such a competing service? Pinch yourself; you're dreaming. If such suggestions now sound absurd, it's only because we've forgotten what it was like to live in a free country. The average train passenger in 1912 could easily have found herself seated opposite a fellow passenger armed with a loaded revolver (concealed or otherwise), smoking an Indian hemp cigarette, and carrying a hip flask of laudanum. In fact, your great-grandmother would probably have felt somewhat more secure under such circumstances, knowing this fellow American was prepared to resist any attempted train robbery, as well as to provide a sip of cough syrup should the baby (your grandfather) grow fretful. The fact that we find it unthinkable today that an airline might be allowed any such options only means we have grown used to living under a burgeoning variety of fascism, an economic system in which private corporations are allowed to keep private title to their properties and extract certain after-tax profits (providing they don't grow large enough to attract the attention of the "Anti-Trust Division"), but where all substantive decisions about routes, "security," and so forth are actually made on a "one-size-fits-all" basis by unelected government functionaries. To argue any part of the current scenario is a true "voluntary, free contract" between passenger and airline is like saying the Todt Organization's slave laborers in various cannon works in Nazi Germany had no right to blame the government for their plight, since they'd entered into a "voluntary contract" with their employer. ("Volunteer for this labor contract, or go to the death camps. Choose quickly.") "Voluntary contract," indeed. I'm free "to not use their service" -- and try to find a passenger train with regular service from Colorado Springs to Las Vegas? And how long do you think we'll be free from having our luggage searched and being require to show our "government-issued photo ID" on the trains and highways? Whoops. "Random highway checkpoint" stops are already part of the War on Drugs, aren't they? And reporter P.L. Wyckoff of The Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger reported this week: "They haven't attracted the attention that drug searches on the New Jersey Turnpike and other highways have. But charges of racial profiling are being leveled on another busy battlefield in the drug war -- the nation's trains and train stations. "Larry Bland, a black Bethesda, Md., resident, says he had just walked off a train in Richmond, Va., in July when police told him they needed to search his bag because drugs were coming through the station and he 'fit the profile.' "Carlos A. Hernandez, a former Newark, N.J., policeman, believes he was singled out for a tense drug search of his Amtrak sleeper cabin coming back from Miami that same month simply because his name is Hispanic. ... "Civil libertarians and attorneys say that, whatever the truth for Bland and Hernandez, such cases are widespread. ... 'That is really just a sliver of what's going on out there,' said David Harris, a University of Toledo law professor who prepared a national report for the American Civil Liberties Union on racial profiling on the highways. "Train searches 'have been going on for a long time,' agrees Georgetown law professor David Cole. ..." Vin Suprynowicz, assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is author of the new new book, "Send in the Waco Killers," available at 1-800-244-2224 or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html. *** Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com "The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it." -- John Hay, 1872 "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken * * * - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ------ If you have subscribed to vinsends@ezlink.com and you wish to unsubscribe, send a message to vinsends-request@ezlink.com, from your OLD address, including the word "unsubscribe" (with no quotation marks) in the "Subject" line. To subscribe, send a message to vinsends-request@ezlink.com, from your NEW address, including the word "subscribe" (with no quotation marks) in the "Subject" line. All I ask of electronic subscribers is that they not RE-forward my columns until on or after the embargo date which appears at the top of each, and that (should they then choose to do so) they copy the columns in their entirety, preserving the original attribution. The Vinsends list is maintained by Alan Wendt in Colorado, who may be reached directly at alan@ezlink.com. The web sites for the Suprynowicz column are at http://www.infomagic.com/liberty/vinyard.htm, and http://www.nguworld.com/vindex. The Vinyard is maintained by Michael Voth in Flagstaff, who may be reached directly at mvoth@infomagic.com. ___________________________________________________________________ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj. - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 22:57:32 -0600 From: charles hardy Subject: Fw: Oct. 11 column -- making up new "rights" - ---------------- Charles Hardy - --------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Vin_Suprynowicz@lvrj.com (Vin Suprynowicz) To: vinsends@ezlink.com Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 18:44:41 -0700 Subject: Oct. 11 column -- making up new "rights" Message-ID: FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED OCT. 11, 1999 THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz The 'right to travel in safety' Continuing the response to my column of Oct. 3, about "random airport searches" of my bags even after they've cleared our now-standard metal detectors and X-ray machines, correspondent T.M. wrote in: "We have all sorts of rights and obligations that are not listed in the Constitution. That is why we have elected representatives, laws, and courts. My right to travel in safety was created by the Federal government and is no less a real right that your right to carry a firearm. What about the right of the airline to protect its property? You seem to think carrying weapons on airplanes does not compromise safety. This is an idea most people would find hard to accept. "It's pretty obvious that no Constitutional right is absolute. We have all heard the one about yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater. Do you accept any limits on the right to bear arms? I don't find it hard to draw a distinction between reasonable restrictions on my rights and oppressive limits to my freedom." I replied: In fact, T.M., every constitutional right is absolute, unless some modifying condition is included in its wording. The Fourth Amendment, for instance, does not ban searches; it merely says searches may occur only under a written warrant, issued upon presentation of probable cause to believe a crime has been committed. Therefore, you would be correct in stating "The Fourth Amendment's ban on government searches is not absolute." The Second Amendment contains no such modifying language. Grammatically, the introductory clause, explaining why the founders preferred a populace armed with up-to-date military-style arms and capable of militia service, as a better guarantor of freedom than any standing army (such as, say, an armed "FBI," "ATF," or "DEA"), does not restrict the second. It does not say my right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed "unless some bureaucrat, operating in good faith, feels there is a reasonable risk to public safety." There is no place you could have possibly been convinced of such a dangerous absurdity but in a tax-funded government school. Our "elected representatives, laws, and courts" are not authorized to discover for us "new obligations" not listed in the constitution. The Constitution limits government to such functions, duties, and powers as are (start ital)specifically enumerated(end ital) for them there. Do you have a "right to travel in safety," which was "created by the Federal government"? Let's say you die in a hijacking on a commercial means of transportation. Can your family sue the federal government for failing to protect you? No, they cannot. The courts will acknowledge no such "right," nor any federal duty to protect it. This made-up "right" exists only in the evanescent speeches of politicians. It is very much "less real" than my right to carry a firearm. Real rights are restrictions on government action. New, made-up "rights" can be spotted relatively easily, since they insidiously justify government coersion. There can be no "right" to free medical care, unless someone holds a gun to a doctor's head. The guarantee of a "right" for the disarmed to remain safe is even more chimerical. It matters not at all that "many people may find it hard to accept" that I have a right to keep and bear arms on a common carrier, nor the notion that armed, law-abiding citizens make everyone safer, from freelance bandits as well as from genocidal governments. (An airline concerned with safety is certainly allowed to offer passengers color-coded frangible ammunition, capable of downing a hijacker without penetrating their pressure hulls.) My right is not subject to any majority vote, any more than a majority could vote to seize the jewelry salesman's sample case and divvy its contents amongst themselves. You say "We have all heard the one about yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater." But Mr. Justice Holmes wrote that (start ital)in dissent(end ital). It is not the law. I do indeed have a right to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. What would (start ital)you(end ital) do if you were the only one who realized the theater was on fire? The example is quite apt. If you yell "Fire!" inappropriately in a crowded theater, you might be charged with disturbing the peace and incitement to riot. How often does such a deadly riot occur? I can't remember one in my lifetime. Similarly, if you shoot someone inappropriately on an airplane, you would be equally likely to face prosecution. (The Second Amendment grants us only a right to "keep and bear" arms -- not to brandish a gun in order to get that darned stewardess to hurry up, nor to shoot anyone in cold blood.) How often did this happen, back before passengers were searched for weapons? Hardly ever, except when we were at war, overthrowing foreign governments and getting their nationals upset. I call it "The Fred & Ethel Mertz Security System." This summer a 12-year-old cut through the fence at Logan International in Boston and flew to London without a ticket, let alone passing through any metal detector. (Feel safer now?) It makes precisely as much sense to put millions of domestic airline passengers through all this just-for-show rigmarole to supposedly prevent anyone from having the (start ital)opportunity(end ital) to use a gun inappropriately, as it would for the government to hire thousands of nurses and assign them the duty of shooting a dose of curare or botulism toxin into the vocal chords of everyone entering a movie theater in this country, to prevent them from having the (start ital)ability(end ital) to yell "Fire!" during the movie ... even in that one case in 10,000 when yelling "Fire!" would be precisely the right thing to do. Vin Suprynowicz, assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is author of the new book, "Send in the Waco Killers," available at 1-800-244-2224, or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html. *** Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com "The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it." -- John Hay, 1872 "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken * * * - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ------ If you have subscribed to vinsends@ezlink.com and you wish to unsubscribe, send a message to vinsends-request@ezlink.com, from your OLD address, including the word "unsubscribe" (with no quotation marks) in the "Subject" line. To subscribe, send a message to vinsends-request@ezlink.com, from your NEW address, including the word "subscribe" (with no quotation marks) in the "Subject" line. All I ask of electronic subscribers is that they not RE-forward my columns until on or after the embargo date which appears at the top of each, and that (should they then choose to do so) they copy the columns in their entirety, preserving the original attribution. The Vinsends list is maintained by Alan Wendt in Colorado, who may be reached directly at alan@ezlink.com. The web sites for the Suprynowicz column are at http://www.infomagic.com/liberty/vinyard.htm, and http://www.nguworld.com/vindex. The Vinyard is maintained by Michael Voth in Flagstaff, who may be reached directly at mvoth@infomagic.com. ___________________________________________________________________ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj. - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Oct 99 18:30:00 -0700 From: scott.bergeson@ucs.org (SCOTT BERGESON) Subject: FW: A principal and his gun 2/2 [ ...Continued From Previous Message ] Politics of nothing Right here in Boulder, a city of self-proclaimed enlightenment, city council members are hard at it trying to enact more gun control in the light of Columbine. Weird. Today in Boulder, it is absolutely illegal in every way, shape and form for a student to walk onto, or anywhere near a public school with a gun of any kind. Remove all state and local gun laws, and you still have a federal law that clearly forbids firearms of any kind within 100 yards of public schools. Anyone who shoots up any school, anywhere, is violating gun laws. So what does the Boulder City Council think up to address the very real concern of school massacres? Hey, let's pass some gun laws. Duh. "If we can save one life," it would be worth it, Councilman Dan Corson told the Daily Camera. If the city council manages to craft a gun law that isn't redundant to the Nth degree, it will serve only to make victims of future massacres more defenseless-guaranteed. Some politicians know this, but they don't care. What matters is how the public perceives the headlines their words garner. Guns kill. Duhhh. "Let's outlaw guns." Gun control was essential to Hitler and slave owners in the Old South. Proven fact: Gun control oppresses and kills. Proven fact #2: Responsible adults, such as Joel Myrick, save lives. When unencumbered by bizarre gun laws, they can save even more lives. So let's appeal to the Boulder City Council and the Boulder Valley School Board to explore ways of empowering law abiding adults. Perhaps it's time for the school district, with the full support of city hall, to establish a voluntary defensive weapons training course for teachers and administrators. Politicians who find a way to balance the firepower between forces of good and evil, by arming some teachers and administrators, might not get re-elected. But they might preclude a future disaster like Columbine, where SWAT teams sat helplessly in a parking lot while a teacher in the building prepared to fire at the shooters with a fire extinguisher. Have a good laugh at this idea, on me. Then ask yourself whether it's more important to be re-elected, or to cut short a future school massacre. We will never rid society of guns unless we eliminate the natural phenomenon of internal combustion. A gun is a crude instrument and nothing more than a controlled explosion. America is home to about 250 million of them, and they're with us to stay regardless of law. If you want to save lives, the answer is simple. Stop keeping guns from the hands of would-be heroes -- the only people who obey gun laws. Joel Myrick had a gun, legally in his truck. Myrick and his gun saved lives, but they could have saved more. The lesson: Some guns save lives. This article, from the Independence Institute staff, fellows and research network, is offered for your use at no charge. Independence Feature Syndicate articles are published for educational purposes only, and the authors speak for themselves. Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily representing the views of the Independence Institute or as an attempt to influence any election or legislative action. Please send comments to Editorial Coordinator, Independence Institute, 14142 Denver West Pkwy., suite 185, Golden, CO 80401 Phone 303-279-6535 (fax) 303-279-4176 (email) webmngr@i2i.org Independence Institute topical pages: Criminal Justice & Second Amendment http://i2i.org/CrimJust.htm Education http://i2i.org/Eduction.htm Environment http://i2i.org/enviromt.htm Immigration http://i2i.org/IPPC.htm Parent Information Center http://i2i.org/PIC.htm Personal Freedom Center http://i2i.org/lifestyle.htm Politics & Government http://i2i.org/Politics.htm Stevinson http://i2i.org/StevCntr.htm Center on Local Government http://i2i.org/StevCntr.htm Transportation http://i2i.org/transprt.htm Waco http://i2i.org/Waco.htm Op-ed archive http://i2i.org/opedlist.htm Hot Topics this week http://i2i.org/HotTopic.htm Great Books page http://i2i.org/book.htm Publications catalogue http://i2i.org/Publctns.htm Copyright 1999 - - ------------------------------ End of utah-firearms-digest V2 #162 ***********************************