My email response to cbs:
Sorry it is long winded and a little plagiarized here n' there.
Dear Sirs:
Mr. Dick Meyer should try reading the Bill Of Rights. How is it that the phrase: THE PEOPLE is taken to mean individuals in the 1st, 4th, 9th and 10th admendments, but (to liberals) in the 2nd it means a collective right or a states right? In your article you state: "Most Americans think that the Second Amendment of the Constitution provides individual citizens the right to have guns." Thats because it does in plain black and white, failure to admit as much is both blatently absurd and a pathetic start to any attempt at genuine debate.
Your notion that "What the founders intended is unknowable" is in stark contrast to period writings by our founding fathers. Unlike the ancient library of Carthage, the Library of Congress has yet to be raized. If writings of the Founding Fathers cannot enlighten us to thier intentions, than your article is worth what?
George Washington, January 7, 1790:
Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence. From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to ensure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable. The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference—they deserve a place of honor with all that's good.
Jefferson quoting Cesare Beccaria—a Milanese criminologist whom he admired who was also his contemporary—in On Crimes and Punishment:
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes...Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
John Adams in A Defense Of The Constitution:
"Arms in the hands of individual citizens may be used at individual discretion...in private self-defense."
Samuel Adams, during Massachusetts’ U.S. Constitution ratification convention in 1788:
The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.
Jefferson, part of the proposed Virginia Constitution, in 1776:
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in Government"
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
Thomas Paine, from his Thoughts On Defensive War written in 1775:
"Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them."
George Washington, In response to a proposal for gun registration :
"Absolutely not. If the people are armed and the federalists do not know where the arms are, there can never be an oppressive government."
"address the life and death issues of gun control directly, away from the shadows and phantoms of civic theology. We do just that with other extremely dangerous mechanical devices that individuals use -- cars, boats, airplanes"
Car related deaths top the list with astounding numerical authority. At age 16 you can: purchase, own, drive, and sell any auto. If being "extremely dangerous" is the prerequisite for a nation wide ban, cars would be divided into "pre ban" or illegal in short order. Convicted criminals of any crime can "keep and bear" cars, boats, or airplanes.... but not firearms! Can a 16 year old purchase: handguns, rifles, or ammunition? NO. Do crimes commited with a car or with a firearm carry stiffer punishment? How many cars are illegal to import?
"Attorney General John Ashcroft, entrusted with collective security for the world's most powerful country, wants to settle the question once and for all, in a way that would eventually make it easier for individuals to have guns. Alien scientists and foreign anthropologists would be fairly mystified by this anti-Darwinian state of affairs"
Sir, unlike biology, the idea of SOCIAL Darwinism ( Karl Marx) has been discounted. You remember, the fall of communism, don't you.
Last but not least of your offensive stupidity :"So the time for pussy footing around is over. It’s time to repeal the Second Amendment. Bag it."
Even without the Second admendment, or the bill of rights, our right to bear arms still exists. The Constitution, or any government, does not grant or give any rights. The Constitution recognizes and protects our rights from the government; and from ourselves (referendum- as in tyranny of the majority). Governments can only take and deny our rights that we as humans posess as is the nature of our being. Possibly you'll remember this :
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Xxxxxx Xxxxxxxx
Dogma