The text of my e-mail:

Sir:

Your bias against individual rights places you in the same catagory as the liar from the NY Times and the sycophants from CNN.

Read the Federalist Papers!  The 2nd Enumerated Right is about individual rights.  Without the 2nd, there is no 1st.

I can only hope that someday you will try being honest with your readers and then maybe even yourself.  Should you ever find your wife or daughter being raped, I hope you are weaponless.  Later you can explain to your loved one that you would have done something, but it wasn't your individual right to stop the attack.  You were waiting for the National Guard.

Sincerely,
**********

Dick Meyer, editorial director of CBSNews.com replied with a thanks.  May have been program generated, but at least I had my say.

For more info on the story, see "Gunning Down the 2nd Amendment" at the home page of this Forum.

Absolutely!



Ok, that's over the top.  As ironic as it would be, wishing that kind of crap on a person is just wrong.  Better to wish that he [b]was[/b] armed so he could see how important it was.

Believe me, I get rather upset at such excrement dogma that these folks put out, but any and all correspondence should not be so emotional.  Don't give them (the gun grabbers) an excuse to end the word "gun" with "nut".



His first sentence of the second quoted paragraph is totally without fact.  If he is trying to infer what the Founding Fathers were thinking (Adams, especially) when composing the text of the Second Amendment, then yes, he may not get a clear picture, by just using the amendment text as his guide especially of definitions of the words used.  However, if this journalist actually did some research into period writings by Jefferson, Washington, Adams, Hamilton, etc., then he would clearly see the intent those great men had, not just in the text of the Second Amendment, but of the whole of the Bill of Rights.

After all, when folks cite the "freedom of the press" or the "freedom of religion" or even the "separation of church and state", they usually SPECIFICALLY reference the fact that these were the same inalienable rights denied to the Colonists leading up to the American Revolution.  If the media truly, TRULY, put its money where its mouth is on being "fair and balanced," or at least exhibited some integrity, then it would certainly make reference SPECIFICALLY as why the Second Amendment was and CONTINUES to be important to the preservation of the American way of life.

And, in a perfect world, the ACLU would be on our side as well.

-Zmeja

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

Dogma - you made my week. Good show, Sir. [beer]

Here is my letter to them:



[soapbox]

Gentlemn,

Your letters were far superior to mine.  In retrospect, I was liekly over the top.  However, since so many people in the media are emotion-driven rather than logic-driven, I chose the past of gut-reaction emotion.  When your child is endangered, political viewpoint makes for a poor weapon.  One of the reasons Jimmy Carter was so thoroughly beaten was his mush-headedness regarding personal protection.  When asked on a national debate about using deadly force to protect his daughter, he hemmed and hawed.  He exposed himself for the fool he was.

That may be been Mondale, but the concept is the same.  Only a persom completely void of brains would limit his violent response to a threat on his family.  It was my goal to cut through the chase and get to the basics of self-defense.

Warmest regards,
VD55

BTW, I am saving Dogma's letter and plan to plagerize it early and often.

Why not just raise the flag that says "Every person in this Country willing to take arms against the Government, now is the time."

Fortunately, most in the government don't listen to such ridiculous advice from the media.

Great Input...
Never knew that about FDR...
What a weasel...

[sniper2]

I've said this before, but I've found out that the only non-bias and non-liberal news network in the country is FOX News.  CBS, NBC, CNN, etc are out to get us...or at least they think that.  [}:D]

Honestly I never pay attention to the other news stations for those reasons.  Plus they lie their asses off and bend the story if you haven't noticed.  But I'm beginning to think that we can't keep ignoring them (the liberal media) for much longer.  If we ignore them, they're just gonna get away with it.  VolgaDeutsch did the right thing and it's about time we all start putting our foot down.

Here was mine:



-Zmeja

Dogma,
That letter kicks ass. Good job, bud.